France soldier killed in Iraq in battle with Daesh militants

A French soldier was killed in a four-hour fire fight in Iraq, when French and Iraqi forces raided a Daesh hideout, Iraqi security sources said on Tuesday, Reuters reports.

Three other French and five Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the clash in a rural area of Iraq’s northern Salahuddin province on Monday evening, two security sources said.

The French Presidency confirmed the death and named the soldier as Nicolas Mazier of a French Special Forces unit taking part in a raid with Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service troops against a Daesh hide-out.

The French and Iraqi forces landed by helicopters in the Al-Eth area after an Iraqi air strike on the militants’ position but came under intense attack, the sources said.

“It was clearly an ambush by terrorists,” one Iraqi security source said. The battle lasted for more than four hours.

Iraq declared final victory over Daesh in December 2017 but it still operates in separate groups in pockets of northern and western Iraq and still carries ambushes, assassinations and bombings across Iraq.

The hard-line group has resorted to guerrilla tactics since it abandoned its goal of holding territory and creating a self-sufficient caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria.

READ: France confirms soldier killed during anti-terrorism training in Iraq