A U.S. service member was fatally wounded early Thursday fighting alongside Kurdish Peshmerga forces in a U.S. Special Operations helicopter assault on an ISIS prison compound in northern Iraq that freed about 70 hostages, Pentagon officials said.

The death of the American, whose service branch was not immediately disclosed, was the first combat fatality suffered by the U.S. in the campaign against ISIS and as such raised questions about the U.S. mission in Iraq and President Obama’s pledge not to commit “boots on the ground” to the fight.

Pentagon officials did not disclose the circumstances of the service member’s death, saying only that he was wounded during the firefight and died later while receiving medical treatment.

Read the article “U.S. Death in Iraq Belies Obama’s ‘Boots on the Ground’ Pledge” on military.com.