First pictures of hostages being freed from IS compound, hours before execution
Hostages can be seen covered in blood while being freed from an IS compound in a daring joint-operation raid in Iraq that killed a US commando.
These are the first pictures of prisoners running in single file as soldiers beckoned them through rooms in the raid in northern Iraq.
US Special Operations Forces and Kurdish forces stormed the IS-run prison freeing some 70 captives who were facing imminent execution.
Of those prisoners, more than 20 were members of the Iraqi security forces. Five IS militants were also captured and several others killed, the Pentagon said.
The night raid on Huwija came just hours before intelligence suggested the Peshmerga and Iraqi soldiers were to be murdered and buried in four mass graves.
The raid resulted in the death of Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, the first American death fighting ISIL.
His body was returned to his family on Saturday in Dover, Delaware.
Pentagon chief expects more anti-IS raids after captives freed
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said he expected more raids targeting the Islamic State group similar to the mission that freed dozens of captives but left an American commando dead in Iraq.
The raid marked an apparent break with the stated role of US forces, who are in Iraq to support government forces but do not directly engage in combat in line with Obama's "no boots on the ground" policy.
But Carter said it was likely not a one-off, noting that a "significant cache" of intelligence had been retrieved.
"I expect we'll do more of this kind of thing," Carter said.
"One of the reasons for that is that you learn a great deal because you collect the documentation, you collect various electronic equipment and so forth... So the sum of all this will be some valuable intelligence."
The highly decorated soldier killed, Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, was the first American serviceman to die in action in Iraq since 2011.
"This is combat, things are complicated," Carter said in discussing the circumstances of Wheeler's death.
This sort of operation has been extremely rare ever since the vast majority of US forces left Iraq.
America is supporting the Kurds with both equipment and training as the Peshmerga have proven to be the most effective fighting force against ISIL in Iraq.
