California Marine 1st to Die in Iraq in Fight Against ISIS

The first U.S. Service member to die in Iraq since the Obama Administration initiated “Inherent Resolve,” the operation to fight Islamic State, was Marine Lance Cpl. Sean Neal, a 19-year-old from California, according to the Pentagon. 

Neal reportedly died in Baghdad on Friday; the Pentagon asserted that his death resulted from a non-combat incident.

“Inherent Resolve,” which is attempting to battle Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has used airstrikes as the core part of its tactics.  

The number of military personnel on the ground in those countries has burgeoned in recent months, unlike the drawdown by Obama that had withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, according to the Washington Post

Obama has had to implicitly renounce his vow that U.S. forces would not return to combat in Iraq; an American presence has been established in joint headquarters now existing in Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s northern Kurdish region. American advisors are lending support to Iraqi forces in their airstrikes on Islamic State.

Image: USMC via New York Daily News

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