Two U.S. troops injured during ISIS attacks in Iraq, Syria

Two American troops were injured over the weekend in separate attacks by Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, a defense official said, marking the first time the U.S. military has publicly disclosed a casualty among troops deployed to Syria.

The injuries occurred during the Memorial Day weekend, when President Obama acknowledged for the first time that U.S. troops there are in “combat.”

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said both troops were injured by indirect fire while conducting train-advise-and-assist missions.

“In both cases, these were people operating behind the forward line of troops. They were not on the front lines; they were not engaged in active combat. … They were not out trigger-pulling offensively,” Davis told reporters Tuesday.
In Iraq, the injury occurred in the north in the vicinity of the Kurdish capital and U.S. military base in Irbil, Davis said. There are currently about 4,000 U.S. troops authorized for deployment to Iraq.

In Syria, the service member was injured in the area north of Raqqa, where teams of U.S. special operations troops are supporting several rebel groups advancing toward the Islamic State’s self-declared capital, Davis said. A small team of about 50 U.S. special operations troops deployed to Syria for the first time in December, and in April the White House authorized a total of 300 troops for Syria.

Both incidents involved indirect fire from Islamic State militants, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

Neither incident involved a large-scale attack or evidence of an unusually large ISIS force, Davis said.
The troops' injuries were severe enough to prevent them from being returned to duty, Davis said. Otherwise, he declined to offer details about the incidents. "We don’t talk in detail about our wounded because we don’t want to telegraph battle-damage assessments to our enemy," he said.

The question of whether the U.S. military mission in Iraq and Syria involves "combat" has been a politically sensitive issue, with the Pentagon preferring to describe it as an "advise-and-assist mission," and White House often avoiding the term combat altogether.
That changed on Memorial Day. Speaking at Arlington Cemetery, Obama acknowledged for the first time that the three U.S. troops killed by ISIS fighters during the past year in fact died conducting combat operations.

“In Iraq, in our fight against ISIL, three Americans have given their lives in combat on our behalf. And today, I ask you to remember their stories, as well," Obama said. He was referring to:


•Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charles Keating IV, who died on May 3 when his quick reaction force was trying to save an advise-and-assist team that came under attack by ISIS militants.
•Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Cardin, who died on March 20 when an ISIS rocket hit his artillery base, known as Firebase Bell, near the Iraqi town of Makhmour.
•Army Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, who died on Oct. 22 in a raid with Kurdish forces on an ISIS detention facility.

In total, three troops have been killed in action and 15 others have been wounded since the start of Operation In SFC William Farrell SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" PO1 William "Chip" Nagel TSgt Hunter Logan LTC Stephen F. SSG Warren Swan PO2 Ed C. Sgt Joe LaBranche SSgt (Join to see) CPT L S CW5 Charlie Poulton SMSgt Minister Gerald A. Thomas SGM Mikel Dawson CSM Charles HaydenSGT John " Mac " McConnell SSG Derrick L. Lewis MBA, C-HRM SrA Christopher Wright CSM (Join to see) CW5 (Join to see) MAJ (Join to see)herent Resolve in Iraq and Syria in 2014, military data shows.