American killed in Iraq blast

Fifth U.S. fatality vs. ISIS

A U.S. service member in Iraq was killed yesterday by an explosive device outside Mosul, where American military advisers are assisting Iraqi forces in a vicious fight to liberate the city from the barbaric Islamic State terror group.

The Pentagon said the service member, whose name was not released last night, died from wounds sustained in an “explosive device blast” outside the city. The death is the second American military fatality since the effort to retake Mosul was launched more than six months ago. In October, just days after the Mosul operation got underway, Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of Anaheim, Calif., died of wounds sustained in a roadside bomb attack north of the city. Finan was part of a team of advisers assisting Kurdish fighters known as the Peshmerga.

The service member killed yesterday is the fifth combat death in Iraq since the U.S. launched military operations against the Islamic State in August 2014.

Since the beginning of the U.S. campaign against IS in Iraq, the number of U.S. troops in the country has steadily grown. There are now more U.S. forces in Iraq than any time since the 2011 U.S. withdrawal as Iraqi forces and the U.S.led coalition continue to push Islamic State fighters out of the last pockets of territory they control in Iraq.

The Pentagon said more than 100 U.S. special operations forces are working with Iraqi units in and around Mosul, while hundreds of others are playing a supporting role at staging bases farther from the front lines.

The service member’s death comes after Sgt. Joshua Rodgers, 22, of Bloomington, Ill., and Sgt. Cameron Thomas, 23, of Kettering, Ohio — both assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment out of Fort Benning, Ga. — were killed Wednesday night during a firefight with Islamic State fighters in eastern Afghanistan. A third soldier suffered a head wound and was airlifted to safety.

Rodgers and Thomas were accompanying Afghan troops on a raid when they came under attack in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan, the same region where the “Mother of All Bombs” was dropped two weeks ago on an ISIS target.

AP PHOTO RAGING BATTLE: Iraqi special forces survey Islamic State positions from a rooftop in western Mosul. Below, a police officer opens fire in the campaign to retake Iraq’s second-largest city.