Apache Helicopters Now "Advising" Military Operations in Iraq

Katie Pavlich | October 20, 2016 4:05 PM

Since the rise of ISIS in 2014, the White House has maintained U.S. troops and special operators deployed to Iraq are not engaged in combat, but instead are simply advising Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the region to defeat the terror army.

This wasn't true then and it isn't true now.

The Pentagon has just announced Apache helicopters will be used by the United States in the effort to take back Mosul from ISIS. The Mosul offensive, the largest since the majority of U.S. troops were initially pulled out of Iraq in 2011, was launched earlier this week. More than 25,000 U.S. troops have been deployed for the effort.

During intense fighting today, a U.S. servicemember was in a roadside IED bombing while "advising" and assisting in the offensive.

NEWS ALERT: U.S. servicemember killed by blast in Iraq. pic.twitter.com/9KMAmu5xzW
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 20, 2016

Earlier this year Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV was killed in Iraq and video surfaced showing others under heavy combat fire.

Despite U.S. combat casualties, the White House continues to claim U.S. troops are in strict advisory roles. The White House has also argued U.S. servicemember deaths are not combat related because Kudish or Iraqi forces are leading the operations U.S. troops are a part of as advisors, not active soldiers.