A US-Kurdish joint operation freed 70 hostages during a raid on a Daesh (ISIS) prison in northern Iraq last Thursday. Now a video has surfaced showing the moment the captives were freed.
Two videos were obtained by separate news agencies depicting the dramatic scene—the first was obtained by NBC News from the Arabic site Arab24, the other by the Washington Post from Kurdish news outlet Rudaw. The authenticity of the footage was confirmed by US officials Sunday.
You see American and Kurdish forces rushing through the prison, the sounds of heavy gunfire breaking through. Terrified-looking prisoners in bloody prison garb file out of one of the rooms in one scene.
But not all went well. The raid also marked the first US combat casualty in Iraq in almost four years. US Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler was killed during the mission, which unfolded in a building in Hawija, Iraq, just outside Mosul.
There have been other casualties since the formation of the US-coalition against Daesh in 2014—a Canadian soldier died in friendly fire in March, and Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh was executed by Daesh in January.
Watch Rudaw's video below. Via YouTube.
