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Iraq: Revolutionary Guards’ deaths blamed on US drone strike

US Central Command denied a claim by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard yesterday that a US drone strike killed two Iranian advisers near the Iraqi city of Tikrit.

The US insisted that the forces of its coalition had conducted no air strikes in the area at the time of the incident on March 23, during a major offensive against the Islamic State group (Isis).

The Revolutionary Guard said on its sepahnews.ir website that the strike had happened as the men were supporting Iraqi forces trying to retake Isis-held Tikrit.

It identified the dead advisers as Ali Yazdani and Hadi Jafari, saying that they had been buried on Sunday.

This is the first time Iran has said that it has lost forces in a US attack in its Iraqi and Syrian campaigns.

The US-led coalition began surveillance around Tikrit on March 21 after the Iraqi offensive had stalled.

But it says that it only began bombing raids on Tikrit on the night of March 25.

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