ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—A US soldier was killed Saturday in an ISIS mortar attack on an Iraqi military base in Makhmour, some 50 kilometers south of Erbil, Iraqi and US officials said. The attack took place in the early hours of Saturday after militants shelled the base where the US soldier was based. Officials said the US soldier was there to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces for the anticipated offensive to retake Mosul city from the militants. “The tragic attack happened in the Iraqi camp and not in the peshmarga positions,” Jabar Yawar, the spokesperson of the Peshmarga Ministry told Rudaw. “The officials have already clarified that,” he added. This is the second US combat casualty in the war against militants of the ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The first US soldier was killed in a joint Kurdish-US operation in November 2015 in which 69 ISIS captives were freed.
