All six crew members confirmed dead after US military plane crash in Iraq

Number of American troops killed in war on Iran after incident in western desert now stands at 13 All six crew members onboard a US military aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were killed, the US military has said. The KC-135 military refuelling plane crashed in western Iraq on Thursday, in an incident the military said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly fire. Iraq’s western desert is a vast expanse of largely empty rocky plains but is also where many Iran-aligned Shia militia have bases. It has been the site of repeated Israeli and US airstrikes. Elsewhere, a French soldier was killed in an attack in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Friday. It is the first French military death in the war. Since the joint US-Israeli offensive in Iran began almost two weeks ago and plunged the Middle East into war, multiple attacks attributed to pro-Iranian factions have targeted the region, where foreign forces are based as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition. The pro-Iranian Ashab al-Kahf group in Iraq warned on its Telegram page that French interests “in Iraq and the region” would be “under tar