A reported video of the Delta Force-Kurdish raid on an Islamic State prison in northern Iraq Thursday has
shown up on the Kurdish news site Rudaw.
The raid that freed 70 hostages from an ISIS prison was led by the Kurdish Peshmerga special forces and supported by the United States'
Delta Force last week, according to The Washington Post. U.S. Army Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler died in the attack.
Wheeler's death marked the first U.S. casualty from hostile fire in Iraq since June 2014.
According to Rudaw, the Kudistan Region Security Council released the raid video, filmed via helmet cameras. The council told the website that 48 Peshmerga from the council's Counter Terror Department participated in the raid along with 30 Delta Force members.
"KRSC had information that the prisoners were going to be executed on the same day the operation took place," a statement from the council said. "According to the rescued prisoners, they had been told it was the last day of their life. There had been some special graves were dig to bury them."
The video appears to show Delta Force members and Kurdish forces working together, wearing similar uniforms and equipment. The footage is shot from inside the prison and an Islamic State flag is pictured clearly on the wall in the background, The Washington Post noted.
Wheeler was killed in small arms fire and three Kurdish special forces members were
injured in the firefight, FoxtrotAlpha.com reported.
"The plan was not for the U.S. advise-and-assist and accompanying forces to enter the compound or be involved in the firefight,"
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said last week, according to ABC News.
Carter added that, when the gun battle started, Wheeler "ran to the sound of the guns, and he stood up, and all the indications are it was his actions and that of one of his teammates that protected those who were involved in breaching the compound and made the mission successful."
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