Pentagon Identifies American Service Member Killed in Iraq

The U.S. Defense Department has identified the service member killed by a roadside bomb north of Mosul on Thursday as Navy Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan, 34, of Anaheim, California. Finan, who belonged to an explosive-ordnance disposal unit, was serving alongside Iraqi troops as an adviser.

According to a defense official, Finan was killed Thursday when the armored vehicle he was traveling in struck an improvised explosive device and the vehicle rolled over.

Finan was traveling at the time with members of Iraq's elite counterterrorism unit northeast of Mosul. He was flown to the Kurdish capital of Erbil for treatment where he died of his injuries.

Finan was assigned to Navy explosive ordnance disposal mobile unit based in Coronado, California.

"The entire Navy expeditionary combat command family offers our deepest condolences and sympathies to the family and loved ones of the sailor we lost," said Rear Adm. Brian Brakke, commander of the expeditionary force.

Finan was the first American military fatality in Iraq since the start of the Mosul operation earlier this week. He is the fourth U.S. service member to die in combat in the fight against ISIS.

According to U.S. defense officials, more than 100 American military advisers are accompanying Iraq's elite counterterrorism force and Kurdish peshmerga fighters pressing toward Mosul. The advisers help the Iraqi and Kurdish forces with planning and battlefield assistance.

The U.S. advisers serve at the headquarters level and are not supposed to be on the front lines. But given the reality of how the fighting units operate on the battlefield, the American advisers may get closer to a combat environment.