Iranian general killed by Islamic State sniper in Samarra, Iraq

SAMARRA, Iraq, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guards was killed by a sniper while conducting training for indigenous forces in Iraq, the Iranian military says.

Brig. Gen. Hamid Taqavi was shot and killed by one or more snipers "while performing his advisory mission to confront ISIS terrorists," according to a statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which refers to another name for the Islamic State.

Several soldiers with the general were reportedly wounded in the attack.

The Revolutionary Guards said the general had been training Iraqi troops and Shia militia in Samarra, 78 miles north of Baghdad, when he was killed. The city is home to a revered Shia mosque.

Taqavi was reportedly a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, which raged inconclusively throughout the 1980s. He is the highest-ranking Iranian soldier to be killed fighting IS forces in Iraq.

Iran has supported the Iraqi government with advisers and weaponry since IS fighters blitzed into the country over the summer.

In November of last year, Brig. Gen. Mohammad Jamali-Paqaleh of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, also a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, was killed fighting rebel forces in Syria.