President Emmanuel Macron’s office informed that a French Air Force paratrooper, Sergeant Nicolas Mazier, was killed on Monday in Iraq during an operation supporting Iraqi forces. Mazier is the third French soldier to lose his life this month in that nation.
A member of an elite French commando unit was killed Monday in Iraq while “supporting an Iraqi unit in an anti-terrorist operation,” French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Tuesday.
Sergeant Nicolas Mazier, an Air Force paratrooper, “fell in combat while carrying out his mission”, the Elysee Palace said in a statement, expressing Macron’s “profound respect” for his “sacrifice.”
It said other soldiers from the unit were also wounded.
France’s chiefs of defense staff said in a statement that Mazier was mortally wounded, and four more troops hurt during “a reconnaissance operation supporting Iraqi forces around 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad”.
When the Iraqis were attacked by “a group of terrorists in fortified positions,” the French “immediately responded to support their partners, inflicting serious losses on the enemy,” the military headquarters added.
An Iraqi security source in northeastern Kirkuk said Iraqi and French troops were ambushed by Islamic State group jihadists late Monday in neighboring Salah al-Din province.
The source added that the battle lasted “more than five hours” and saw three members of Iraq’s anti-terrorist forces wounded as well as the French casualties.
Mazier is the third French soldier to lose his life this month in Iraq, where the country’s troops form part of Operation Inherent Resolve, a years-long campaign by an international coalition against the Islamic State group.
Around 600 French troops based across the Levant and Gulf region are involved in Inherent Resolve.
Miroslava Salazar, with AFP
