American killed in Iraq rescuing hostages from Islamic State

A U.S. service member was killed Thursday morning in northern Iraq in a special operations raid involving both American and Iraqi Kurdish commandos that freed 70 hostages, the Pentagon said.

It is the first combat-related death of a U.S. service member since American forces withdrew from the country in 2011.

The Pentagon characterized the operation as part of President Obama’s mission to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces, but the raid raised questions about the expanding role of the U.S. military in Iraq and the president’s vow to put “no boots on the ground.”

One U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the mission involved “dozens” of U.S. special operations members, five helicopters and airstrikes before and after the mission.

The American who was killed was shot in a firefight with Islamic State militants and airlifted to an airbase in Irbil in northern Iraq, where he later died. Four Kurdish fighters were also wounded.

U.S. special operations members fought alongside Iraqi Kurdish troops known as peshmerga, who have been among the fiercest fighters in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. One senior defense official said the mission did not have a “precedent” in the more than yearlong fight against Islamic State.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the hostages were being held by Islamic State militants in a prison in the village of Hawija, about 190 miles north of Baghdad. The hostages included more than 20 members of the Iraqi army, he said.

Five Islamic State militants were captured and are now being held in Irbil by the peshmerga, Cook said. An undisclosed number of militants were killed as well.

“This operation was deliberately planned and launched after receiving information that the hostages faced imminent mass execution,” Cook said.

Hawija has been in the hands of Islamic State since the group’s first push through Iraq.

Kirkuk province, where Hawija is located, is under the control of the Kurds, an ethnic group scattered across a number of Middle Eastern nations, including Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, but lacking a state of its own.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council, in charge of the area’s security, said in a statement that the raid lasted from 2 to 4 a.m. local time and that no Kurds were among the rescued hostages.

The U.S.-led coalition helping the fight against Islamic State has carried out hundreds of raids to support the Kurds. U.S. planes have also dropped weapons and other supplies.

Obama has continually been pushed by critics for more direct U.S. military involvement in the fight against Islamic State, but he has previously stood resolute in providing only airstrikes, training and financial support to proxy ground forces.

As a candidate, Obama vowed to be a president who ends wars rather than starts them.

But Islamic State has mounted assaults on the Kurdish region since the group overran large portions of northern and western Iraq in 2014. The U.S. is currently helping the Iraqi government take back Ramadi, the capital of western Anbar province, and the northern town of Bayji, which has a lucrative oil field.

Ground raids, based on intelligence, can be more precise, but they also come with a much greater risk of U.S. casualties.

There have been other ground raids inside Syria, but this operation marks the U.S. military’s first confirmed operation inside Iraq since Islamic State’s rise.

Other ground assaults included one in May when Abu Sayyaf, a militant leader who helped spearhead the group’s lucrative black market oil, gas and financial operations, was killed in Syria.

U.S. forces captured Sayyaf’s wife and a cache of the militants’ laptops, cellphones and other materials for intelligence before returning to a military base in Iraq.

Another operation was an unsuccessful raid last summer meant to rescue U.S. hostages, including James Foley, the U.S. journalist later beheaded by the militants. Islamic State moved Foley and the other captives before U.S. forces arrived in northern Syria, according to the White House.