Two US soldiers were killed in north-central Iraq during an operation on the side of Iraqi forces in the Islamic State group’s stronghold, reports say.
“Two members of the US military have been killed by enemy forces while advising and accompanying Iraqi security forces,” the US Command said in a statement.
The operation aimed at eliminating ISIS fighters in the north-central mountainous region.
The US is part of an international coalition of forces assisting since 2014 the Iraqi army and its militia to flash out the terror group, which found a safe haven in Iraq following the country’s American invasion in 2003.
The Iraqi army earlier on Monday announced that 25 ISIS fighters were killed in the northern of Nineveh, during an airdrop of Iraqi forces, with the support of the international coalition led by the US, Middle East Monitor (MEE) reports.
The global terror group, which has lost its territory in Iraq, has according to Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, doubled its forces to 20,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria where it is still present, Daily Mail reports.
In February, US President Donald Trump said the US will pass the war on ISIS to Russia, Iran and Iraq while noting that Washington has taken oil.
“We’ve done a great job, we’ve taken our soldiers essentially out of Syria except for little hotspots we figure we’ll develop,” Trump said.
“We’ve taken the oil and the soldiers we have there are the ones guarding the oil, we have the oil, so that’s all we have there.”
