Two U.S. troops were injured in separate attacks by terror group ISIS in Iraq and Syria over the weekend, a defense official told reporters on Tuesday.
Military Times, citing Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, reported that both Americans were injured over Memorial Day weekend by indirect fire from ISIS militants when advising and assisting local forces in the region. They were not engaged in combat operations, the Pentagon said.
"In both cases, these were people operating behind the forward line of troops. They were not on the front lines; they were not engaged in active combat. … They were not out trigger-pulling offensively," Davis explained on Tuesday.
The American injured in Iraq was on a train, advise, and assist mission close to the U.S. military base in Irbil, while the service member injured in Syria was operating north of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS in the region. The incidents did not constitute large-scale attacks by ISIS.
Both service members did not immediately return to duty after sustaining the injuries, Davis said, though he declined to further elaborate.
Officially, the Pentagon has sent more than 4,000 U.S. troops to Iraq to help support operations against ISIS there. Three hundred troops have been authorized for deployment to Syria.
Three American service members have been killed by ISIS in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition began operations against the terror group in 2014.
Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, a special operations soldier, was killed during a raid of a prison controlled by the terror group in northern Iraq last October; Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, a Marine, was killed in an ISIS rocket attack at a fire base near Makhmour in March; and, most recently, Navy SEAL Charlie Keating IV was killed north of Mosul when advising Kurdish forces earlier this month.
President Obama, who has insisted that U.S. forces are not engaged in combat operations in Iraq and Syria, said last week that all three service members died in combat.
"These three men were killed in combat while they were supporting local forces in Iraq," Obama told Stars and Stripes in an interview published Friday. "They gave their lives to keep us safe, and our prayers are with their families who have endured a loss that few of us can imagine."
Obama emphasized, however, that the mission against ISIS in the Middle East remains one of supporting, training, and equipping local forces fighting the terror group in Iraq and Syria.