If our troops return fire it would be considered direct combat.
Via Defense News
The 320 US soldiers and Marines at Al Asad air base in western Iraq have been coming under “regular” mortar fire from insurgent forces for several weeks, Defense Department spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters Monday.
While Warren insisted that the attacks have been “wholly ineffective” and “no US personnel, no US equipment have been impacted in any way,” this was the first time that the Pentagon acknowledged that the 2,100 US troops in Iraq have been in danger since deploying late last year.
In addition to the Marines from a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force training units with the Iraqi Army’s 7th Division at Al Asad, there are another 170 US soldiers from the Army’s 1st Infantry Division training another four Iraqi Army battalions near Taji, which is just northwest of Baghdad.
Both sites were major US bases during the American war there from 2003-2011.
Warren added that the US is currently establishing two other sites to train a total of nine Iraqi and three Kurdish battalions in Irbil in the Kurdish-controlled north and Besmaya, which is just south of Baghdad.[…]
The Pentagon continues to insist that US troops will not participate in combat in Iraq against the Islamic State (IS) group, but that US forces have the right to self-defense. Meanwhile, the Shiite-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi is continuing to try and reach out to the Sunni tribes fighting IS in the west and north of Baghdad.
Abadi tweeted on Monday that he “urged the need for a tribal revolt” against IS during a meeting with the governor of Sunni-dominated Anbar province.