Iraqi Kurds say raid with U.S. aimed to free their fighters
By Isabel Coles and Stephen Kalin ERBIL/BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. special forces who raided a prison compound in northern Iraq were acting on intelligence that Kurdish fighters were being held there by Islamic State, a source in the Kurdistan Region Security Council said on Friday. Kurdish counter-terrorism forces also took part in the raid which rescued 69 people early on Thursday. One U.S. commando was killed, the first American to die in ground combat with Islamic State militants. Four Kurds were wounded. Such rescue attempts are rare. The joint operation highlighted the status of Kurdish peshmerga fighters as key allies of the U.S.-led coalition against the militants, also known as ISIL, who control large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria. "The intention was to rescue peshmerga taken hostage by ISIL," said the source in the Security Council of Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region of northern Iraq. "We had solid intelligence that peshmerga were being held in that compound." It turned out, however, that none of the captives were peshmerga, suggesting they may have been moved to another location, the source told Reuters. The detainees were in fact Arabs and included around 20 members of the Iraqi security forces. The others were local residents and Islamic State fighters that the group had accused of spying, said a U.S. official. INTELLIGENCE TROVE U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the mission produced a cache of intelligence, and U.S. forces supporting Iraqi troops were likely to undertake more raids in the future. He said he decided on the rescue after intelligence showed that executions were imminent and mass graves had been dug. Carter said U.S. troops were not planning to enter the compound, and were there only to advise and assist Kurdish fighters. The commando who died, Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, was killed when a firefight broke out and he ran to help the peshmerga. A video circulated by Islamic State supporters online purported to show the aftermath of the raid, including blood-stained medical equipment and packages labelled as containing trauma dressing "made in the U.S.A." Buildings in the area were levelled and several mangled bodies of what a caption said were prisoners lay wrapped in blankets amid the smashed concrete. Islamic State holds hostages in detention centres across the sprawling lands it controls. It also regularly executes people it accuses of spying for the Iraqi state or foreign powers. Some 62 peshmerga have gone missing in battle with Islamic State and several have been beheaded in propaganda videos. Iraqi government forces, Shi'ite militias and the Kurds are all fighting Islamic State but coordination can be difficult in a country deeply divided along sectarian and ethnic lines. Iraq's Defence Ministry said earlier on Friday it was not informed about the previous day's operation, which took place just north of the Islamic State-controlled town of Hawija The mission was the most significant raid against Islamic State in months. A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the suggestion that the rescued hostages had connections to the U.S. government. Senior Iraqi Shi'ite politician Ayad Allawi said he suspected there must have been significant figures among the hostages to warrant a risky intervention by U.S. special forces. "I think this would have happened only if there were some useful assets," he said. (Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Michael Georgy and Mark Trevelyan)
