WASHINGTON: Daesh killed a Navy SEAL during an “orchestrated attack” in Iraq on Tuesday, a US defense official said.
The Pentagon had earlier announced a US troop died during the attack on a Peshmerga position north of Mosul.
“It was an orchestrated attack with shots and multiple IEDs (bombs) going off,” the official said.
Another defense official had earlier said the serviceman was killed by “direct fire.”
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the attack took place about three to 5 km behind the forward line of troops, adding that the troop was advising and assisting Peshmerga forces.
“This sad news is a reminder of the dangers our men and women in uniform face every day in the ongoing fight to destroy Daesh and end the threat the group poses to the United States and the rest of the world,” Cook said.
Meanwhile, bloody clashes between rebel factions in a key opposition stronghold east of Damascus have left 10 civilians and dozens of radical fighters dead, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.
The fighting has rocked Eastern Ghouta since Thursday, despite a local freeze on hostilities between rebels and regime fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
There are “extremely worrying” signs that the group may be making its own chemical weapons and may have used them already in Iraq and Syria, a global watchdog said Tuesday.
The head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ahmet Uzumcu, said his body’s fact-finding teams have found evidence of the use of sulphur mustard in attacks in the two countries.
US Navy SEAL killed by Daesh
US Navy SEAL killed by Daesh
UN chief says those behind ‘unacceptable’ Homs attack must face justice
- France says the "terror" attack is designed to destabilize the country
UNITED NATIONS/PARIS: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the deadly attack on Friday prayers at a mosque in the Syrian city of Homs, and said the perpetrators should be brought to justice.
“The Secretary-General reiterates that attacks against civilians and places of worship are unacceptable. He stresses that those responsible must be identified and brought to justice,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
The explosion killed at least eight worshippers at a mosque in a predominantly Alawite area of Homs, with an Islamist militant group claiming responsibility.
France also condemned the attack, calling it an “act of terrorism” designed to destabilize the country.
The attack “is part of a deliberate strategy aimed at destabilizing Syria and the transition government,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement.
It condemned what it said was an attempt to “compromise ongoing efforts to bring peace and stability.”
The attack, during Friday prayers, was the second blast in a place of worship since Islamist authorities took power a year ago, after a suicide bombing in a Damascus church killed 25 people in June.
In a statement on Telegram, the extremist group Saraya Ansar Al-Sunna said its fighters “detonated a number of explosive devices” in the Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib Mosque in the central Syrian city.
