US Navy SEAL killed as ISIL break Kurdish lines

Iraqi soldiers guard a position on the front line against ISIL near Fallujah, in Anbar province, on May 3, 2016. Further north, ISIL launched an assault on Kurdish lines. AFP / MOADH AL-DULAIMI / AFP / MOADH AL-DULAIMIShow less

Baghdad // ISIL broke through Kurdish defences in northern Iraq on Tuesday and killed a US Navy SEAL deployed as part of the US-led coalition against the extremists.

The attack came as the United Nations said that fighting with ISIL in northern Iraq could displace another 30,000 people, adding to millions who have already fled their homes.

And in Baghdad, throngs of Shiite pilgrims braved the threat of ISIL bombings, which have killed dozens of people in recent days, to take part in a major annual religious commemoration.

The fighter from the US special operations force was at least the third coalition member killed by enemy fire in Iraq since ISIL overran swathes of the country in 2014.

President Barack Obama hailed the 2011 withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as a major accomplishment of his presidency, but US forces have been drawn back into combat in the country against ISIL.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the death occurred during an ISIL attack on a peshmerga position north of Iraq’s second city Mosul, which is held by the extremists.

A US defence official said the US SEAL’s death as the result of “an orchestrated attack with shots and multiple IEDs [bombs] going off.”

US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said from Germany: “Our thoughts and prayers are with that service member’s family.”

A coalition military official said the service member was killed by “direct fire” after “enemy forces penetrated” the Kurdish peshmerga forces’ line.

Kurdish forces are deployed in Nineveh province, whose capital Mosul is ISIL’s main hub in the country.

ISIL attacked the peshmerga in multiple areas of northern Iraq on Tuesday in an attempt to “thwart the plan to liberate Mosul,” said Jabbar Yawar, the secretary general of the autonomous Kurdish region’s peshmerga ministry.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said ISIL overran the Tal Asquf area and that the group was using suicide bombers in the continuing fighting.

Tal Asquf is a small Christian town whose population fled in 2014. According to the Kurdistan Region Security Council, the town was “completely cleared” of ISIL fighters later on Tuesday.

The United States announced last month that it was deploying additional forces to Iraq, bringing the official total to more than 4,000.

Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said the forces would be authorised to advise Iraqis at the battalion and brigade level as opposed to larger divisions, potentially exposing them to greater risks closer to the front lines.

The coalition is carrying out daily air strikes against ISIL, and while most American forces on the ground in Iraq play advisory and support roles, Washington has also deployed special forces to carry out raids against ISIL, and US Marines to provide artillery support.

Two US military personnel have already been killed by extremists in Iraq: an American Marine by rocket fire in March and a special forces soldier who died of wounds received during a raid last October.

As Kurdish forces and ISIL clashed on Tuesday, the United Nations expressed concern that “as many as 30,000 newly displaced individuals” could arrive in Makhmur south-east of Mosul, fleeing fighting in the area.

In Baghdad, tens of thousands of pilgrims converged on a shrine to mourn the death of Imam Musa Kadhim, the seventh of 12 imams revered in by Shiites, who was killed in 799 AD.

A shrine official said that “millions” had taken part in commemorations in recent days, despite ISIL-claimed bombings targeting the pilgrims that have killed at least 37 people in the past week.

*Agence France-Presse