The Pentagon on Friday identified a sailor who was killed by an improvised explosive device blast in Iraq this week.
Chief Petty Officer Jason C. Finan, a 34-year-old sailor of Anaheim, California, died in northern Iraq on Thursday as a result of wounds he sustained in the explosion, the Defense Department said in a release Friday afternoon. Finan was assigned to the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Three in Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The Pentagon said Thursday that a U.S. service member had died as a result of a bomb blast in northern Iraq. Defense officials told the Daily Beast that the casualty occurred near Mosul.
Earlier this week, Iraqi forces backed by U.S. support launched an offensive to retake control of Mosul, an ISIS stronghold. U.S. forces are on a train, advise, and assist mission in Iraq and Syria to help local forces fighting the terror group.
Finan was based in Coronado, California, according to NBC San Diego.
"The entire Navy Expeditionary Combat Command family offers our deepest condolences and sympathies to the family and loved ones of the Sailor we lost," Rear Adm. Brian Brakke, commander of the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command/NECC Pacific, said in a statement.
Three other American service members have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition began striking ISIS targets more than two years ago.