Tehran: An Iranian pilot has been killed while fighting in Iraq, state media reported Saturday, in what is thought to be Tehrans first military casualty during war inside Iraq.
Irans official IRNA news agency did not say whether the pilot died while flying sorties or fighting on the ground.
It said Colonel Shojaat Alamdari Mourjani was killed while defending the holy sites in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.
His death comes after Irans declarations that it will provide its western neighbour with whatever it needs to counter the insurgents who are laying siege to the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
Samarra is a major flashpoint in the fighting and is home to the shrines of 10 and 11th Shia Imams Muhammad Jawad and Hassan al-Askari which were bombed by Al Qaida in February 2006, sparking a worldwide outrage and bloody sectarian war that killed tens of thousands.
President Hassan Rouhani vowed last month that Iran would protect holy sites in Iraq, including in Samarra.
The Fars news agency appeared to confirm the Irna report, publishing photos of a funeral service for the pilot on Friday in his home province of Fars, in southern Iran.
Fars did not give any details, but hinted that Alamdari Mourjani was a member of Irans Revolutionary Guard, whose elite Quds Force is believed to be on the ground and assisting Iraqi forces, despite Tehrans denials.
Earlier in the week, the Iraqi defence ministry said it had taken delivery of five Sukhoi Su-25 warplanes and released video footage of them being unloaded from a cargo plane.
The reports said the jets came from Iran. Sources said the jets belonged to Iraq and were shifted to Iran for safety by Saddam Hussein government after Americans invaded Baghdad in mid nineties.
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