2 special operations GIs killed fighting Islamic State in Iraq

WASHINGTON — Two U.S. special operations personnel were killed in northern Iraq on Sunday during an operation against Islamic State fighters, military officials said Monday, marking the first combat deaths of 2020 in the nearly six-year U.S. campaign against the terrorist group.

The Americans killed were part of a Marine special operations team, according to two military officials, and were clearing a large, well-defended cave complex alongside Iraqi counterterrorism forces in mountains near Makhmur, roughly 40 miles south of

Irbil.

In a statement, Col. Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led mission in Iraq and Syria, said U.S. troops had to deploy additional forces to recover the dead in an effort that took about six hours.

“The forces trekked through mountainous terrain and eliminated four hostile ISIS fighters who were barricaded in the caves,” Caggins said, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

According to one military official, the Americans who were killed had to be pulled out with a hoist after falling into a crevice, and it is unclear how many Iraqi forces were killed and wounded.

Initially, the U.S.-led mission in Iraq and Syria gave scant details about the episode in a news release Monday, pending the notification of the families of those killed.

The deaths come as the Islamic State has spent recent months reconstituting its ranks in porous and ungoverned areas in Iraq and Syria, leaving local forces in both countries working to keep the terrorist group away from urban areas.