(FOX NEWS) An American service member was shot and killed Tuesday by "direct fire" from ISIS militants who stormed through defenses set up by Kurdish Peshmerga troops in northern Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition and Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.
The service member who was killed was serving as an adviser to the Peshmerga forces in the region, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said in a statement.
"It is a combat death, of course. And a very sad loss," Carter told reporters in Stuttgart, Germany, where he was attending a ceremony installing a new commander of U.S. European Command.