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Veteran Iran militiaman killed in Iraq
By Reuters - Jan 12,2015 - Last updated at Jan 12,2015
DUBAI — An Iranian militiaman with a long record of battles in Iraq and Syria has died fighting Islamic State militants in Samarra, a major battleground north of Baghdad, Iranian newspapers reported on Monday.
Mehdi Noruzi, a member of Iran’s Basij militia nicknamed ‘Lion of Samarra’ by his fellow militiamen, was killed on Sunday while “defending the oppressed people of Iraq and holy shrines against revisionist terrorists in Samarra”, Fars said.
Samarra is a key front in the war between the fundamentalist Sunni Muslim fighters of Islamic State and Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is being helped to stem Islamic State’s advance by unspecified numbers of advisers and combatants from Shiite Iran.
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A sniper killed an Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander who was training Iraqi troops and Shiite militia fighting Islamic State (IS) militants in the Iraqi city of Samarra, official Iranian media reported on Sunday.
The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed the killing of a senior Iranian officer advising Iraqi forces in their fight against the jihadists, in posts on jihadist Internet forums on Monday.
Iran is to help Iraq rebuild its army under an agreement that could formalise Tehran's military support for its neighbour, which remains under assault by the Islamic State (IS) group.