About 70 hostages were freed from ISIS in northern Iraq in a joint Kurdish-US raid at a prison compound, where one American soldier was killed in the firefight, the Pentagon said.
This was the first combat between ISIS and US forces in Iraq, and the first US commando death in Iraq since 2011. The soldier was identified as Joshua L Wheeler. Four Kurdish commandos were wounded, according to reports.
The captives included over 20 Iraqi Security Forces members, local residents, and some ISIS members suspected to be traitors by the militant group. They were rescued after a night-long fight where Kurdish forces were supposed to take lead and American forces were to play a supporting role with five helicopters.
The Pentagon said that the operation took place in Hawjiah town in northern Iraq, about 150 miles from Baghdad. Some 20 IS fighters were killed and six were detained in the strike, which also led to recovery of key intelligence from the compound.
The American officials said that at first they did not know that the hostages were soon to be killed, but the drones showed new mass graves around the prison compound.
"There were indications they were all going to be killed very soon," an unnamed US official told The Wall Street Journal.
After the operation, the captives told their rescuers that they were to be executed after the morning prayers, according to CNN.
The American forces were initially tasked to play an assisting role in the raid, but the Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers came under heavy fire in the prison compound. The American soldier was shot inside the compound, and was heavily wounded. He was flown to Irbil, but died later because of his injuries.
The US airstrikes destroyed a nearby bridge and surrounding roads to cut off reinforcements from reaching the prisoners and commandos.
"This was a unique circumstance in which very close partners of the United States made a specific request for our assistance," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told the New York Times.
"The Secretary assessed the situation on the ground, saw that U.S. forces could make a difference here, could perhaps make this operation more successful, and at the end of the day there are 70 people whose lives were saved as a result of this," Cook said.
