Marine killed in Isis attack died at unpublicised US-only base in Iraq

The US marine who was killed in a rocket attack on Saturday died at the first exclusively American base established in Iraq since the Pentagon returned forces to the country in 2014, a spokesman said on Monday.

The base, whose existence had not previously been public, has come under fire from ever closer range over recent days, an indication that Isis knew about the outpost before the Pentagon announced its creation. While the US military described the base as at least 15 kilometers away from the frontline, Fire Base Bell came under small-arms fire again on Monday morning, indicating an advancing enemy which was targeting the newest symbol of the US military’s return to Iraq.

The creation of the outpost is the latest incremental escalation of a war whose developments do not always correspond to the White House’s depiction of a conflict in which the US is in a merely advisory capacity on the ground.

Monday’s attack, by what the military described as a squad of Isis fighters, did not result in any US casualties, but a Katyusha rocket attack on Friday killed a marine from Temecula, California, who was among approximately 200 marines operating out of the base.

Frequent attacks by insurgents on static US positions were a staple of the 2003-2011 US occupation of Iraq. The marine’s death and the establishment of the base have raised questions about the US drifting back into the sort of war that Barack Obama has insisted the nearly two-year-old campaign against Isis is not.

“This is the first time we’ve established a spot that’s only American” since the war against Islamic State began in August 2014, the chief spokesman for the war, Colonel Steve Warren, stated on Monday.

Over the weekend, the Pentagon announced that Staff Sergeant Louis F Cardin died from an Isis attack, but it did yet disclose the existence of Fire Base Bell. All previous installations in Iraq where the US military operates have been co-located with Iraqi forces.

Although Obama has repeatedly insisted that the 4,000 troops he has ordered to fight Isis in Iraq and Syria do not serve in a direct combat role, the Pentagon explicitly said Cardin died a “combat death”.

The purpose of the “geographically separate” fire base is to protect Iraqi forces and their American advisers, according to Warren, who have assembled at Makhmour in preparation for an eventual assault to retake the crucial city of Mosul from Isis. But Warren acknowledged the presence of the base itself has created a target that will come under further Isis attack.