October 22, 2015 | News
An American soldier was killed this week during a mission held in Northern Iraq to free 70 Kurdish captives, captured and held captive by ISIS. Also collaborating on the mission were Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga. The request for the mission by the Iraqi government supposedly came after ISIS kidnapped these men near Hawija about a month ago. Hawija is a town in the Al-Hawija District in the Kurkik province of Iraq.
The Islamic State (IS) has been taking control of many different regions in Iraq and Syria and the Kurdish Peshmerga have been trying hard to fight them off. The Kurds are an ethnic group that live autonomously in northern Iraq, in the Kurkik province and the Peshmerga are their personal forces. The rescue included American helicopters, American and Kurdish Special forces, and air strikes. The mission was a success; all 70 captives were rescued and according to other media reports, Islamic State militants were captured.
This is the first time that an American has died in missions relating to the combat against ISIS. The U.S troops are not regularly on the ground under Obama’s orders, but they do go in to do rescue missions, like the one this week, or to capture important targets. These individual missions usually happen in Syria. The Kurds and the U.S military have closely been working together for quite some time in the war against ISIS.