2 Americans slain in Iraq raid on Islamic State camp

The U.S. service members had been acting as advisors.

BEIRUT — Two U.S. service members were killed in Iraq in an engagement with hostile forces on Sunday, the Pentagon said Monday.

The two members of the military, whose names have not been released pending next-of-kin notification, were killed in a firefight with Islamic State militants in Makhmour district, north of Baghdad. They were there to accompany and advise Iraqi security forces.

On Monday, Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service announced it had conducted a raid a day earlier on an Islamic State encampment in the Qarachogh mountain range, more than 35 miles southwest of the city of Irbil.

The clashes involving U.S. troops and Iraqi forces took place in a cave complex. Twenty-five Islamic State militants were killed and nine tunnels and a training camp were destroyed.

There were few other details, but an Iraqi officer who requested anonymity in discussing operational matters said four of the Americans were also wounded.

“The Daesh fighters popped out of one entrance and killed the two Americans. They dragged their bodies into the cave complex,” he said, using another term for Islamic State.

A contingent of U.S. forces then stormed the area to recover the bodies; four members were wounded.

“It was a big firefight, one of the most intense we’ve faced in this period,” he said.

The death of the U.S. service members comes amid Iraq-U.S. tensions over American troops’ presence in the country after a January strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, the top Iranian commander. The U.S. has about 5,200 troops in Iraq, the Pentagon says, along with an unspecified number of contractors.

Suleimani’s assassination was seen by many politicians as a gross violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and sparked renewed calls for the U.S. to leave the country. Joint anti-Islamic State operations between Iraqi security forces and the coalition were suspended for a time. Col. Myles Caggins, spokesman for the coalition in Iraq, said joint missions between Iraqi and U.S. forces had restarted mid-February.

Sunday’s operation began around 7 a.m., when warplanes struck areas of the Qarachogh mountains, according to witnesses quoted by Rudaw, an Iraqi Kurdish news channel. Four helicopter gunships pressed the attack on three different sites in the mountains, before soldiers rappelled from the helicopters.

Iraq’s anti-terrorism force said the firefight ended early Monday morning.

A source familiar with operations in the area, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss security matters freely, said the two service members were likely to be from the Marine Raiders, a special operations force that works with the Counter-Terrorism Service on anti-Islamic State operations.

In August, the Pentagon announced the death of Gunnery Sgt. Scott A. Koppenhafer, who was assigned to 2nd Marine Raider Battalion, Marine Forces Special Operations Command. He was killed by hostile small-arms fire during a raid on Islamic State militants in northern Iraq.

Islamic State, whose militants once controlled a full third of both Syria and Iraq, lost the last of its putative caliphate last year. Since then, its members have found refuge in remote areas of both countries, including the Qarachogh mountains.