A new video purportedly shows Navy SEALS engaged in a firefight with ISIS forces in Iraq despite Obama administration officials insisting American forces are only serving in a non-combat role.
The video posted on Wednesday by World Conflict Films claims to show an engagement that occurred in the town of Tel Skuf, near the city of Mosul. The battle happened after ISIS fighters overwhelmed the town's Christian militia, according to the poster.
"Not wanting ISIS to secure an entrenched foothold on the town, the elite Peshmerga Counter Terror Unit (CTU) accompanied by their Navy SEAL advisers, acted quickly by counterattacking the village, killing dozens upon dozens of Islamic State militants," World Conflict Films said in its description of the video. "The SEALs and the CTU were able to violently cleanse the town of ISIS, but at the expense of losing a SEAL and at least 15 Peshmerga fighters."
World Conflict Films claimed that Apache helicopters and F-16s were also deployed during the battle.
The White House said on Wednesday that, despite the violence, American troops are not deployed in a combat capacity.
"I don’t mean to make it sound benign because it’s not, it’s dangerous," Josh Earnest told reporters during a briefing. "What I am trying to do, though, is trying to be as precise as possible with you and the American public about what exactly our commander-in-chief has asked our service members to do," Earnest said. "Secretary [Ash] Carter, earlier today has described his death as a combat death. That’s accurate. This is an individual who is not in a combat mission, but he was in a dangerous place and his position came under attack. He was armed, trained, and prepared to defend himself.
"Unfortunately, he was killed. He was killed in combat but that was not a part of his mission. His mission was specifically to offer advice and assistance to those Iraqi forces that were fighting for their own country."