US Navy SEAL killed by Daesh

AFP
Iraqi soldiers guard a position on the front line against Islamic State (IS) group jihadists near Fallujah, in Iraq's Anbar province, on Tuesday. (AFP)

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.