No boots on the ground.

STUTTGART, Germany, May 3 (Reuters) – A US service member has been killed in northern Iraq, US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday.

“It is a combat death, of course. And a very sad loss,” Carter told reporters in Stuttgart.

Carter gave no details about the service member who was killed but said the incident occurred near Erbil.

UPDATE:

Via The Blaze:

…. “A Coalition service member was killed in northern Iraq as a result of enemy fire,” the U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, said in a statement. “Further information will be released as appropriate.” The statement noted the military’s the policy “to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.”

Meanwhile, a U.S. military official in Iraq said the American was killed while performing his duty as an adviser to the Kurdish peshmerga troops.

The soldier was killed by “direct fire” after Islamic State forces penetrated the peshmerga forces’ forward line, the official said. The American was two to three miles behind that front line, the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

UPDATE: RIP.