The Pentagon has identified the special operations soldier who was killed in the rescue mission of Iraqi hostages on Thursday.
Army Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, 29, of Roland, Okla., died in Kirkuk province “from wounds received by enemy small arms fire during an operation,” according to a Defense Department release Friday morning.
Wheeler is the first U.S. combat death in the fight against the Islamic State.
The special operations members teamed up with Kurdish peshmerga fighters to free 70 Iraqi prisoners from the Islamic State in Kawija, Iraq. Despite the fact that a soldier was killed in a combat operation, defense officials went to great pains Thursday to say that this does not represent a combat phase of the mission beyond the advertised advise-and-assist role.
Wheeler was assigned to Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Before Thursday, nine U.S. troops had died during Operation Inherent Resolve, with is the operation against the Islamic State. But all of those were classified as non-combat.
