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A US soldier has been killed in Iraq - but there are conflicting claims about how he died.

The Pentagon claims 1st Lt. David Bauders, 25, who served with the Washington National Guard's 176th Engineer Company,died Friday at Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq in a non-combat incident.

Military spokesman Captain Joseph Siemandel told USA Today that Bauder's death remained under investigation and that no details were immediately available.

But an Iraqi military source told Qatari news website Al Araby : "American soldier was injured on May 3 during a battle at Tel Saqf northeast of Mosul. One soldier was killed at the scene," he said.

"The soldier that died on Sunday was one of two that were injured during the battle."

American troops are fighting alongside Kurdish forces during in Tel Saqf.

Bauder was commissioned as an engineer in May 2013 after graduating from the University of Portland.

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(Image: Reuters)

Earlier this week a US Navy Seal was killed by fire from the ISIS outside the IS-held city of Mosul, and US defence secretary Ash Carter acknowledged it as a "combat death" as the US expands its role in the northern part of Iraq.

Navy SEAL Charlie Keating is the third US serviceman to die while fighting in Iraq since the US-led coalition launched its campaign against the Islamic State in the summer of 2014.

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A US defence official said the American was killed with small arms fire suggesting that Islamic State fighters likely came within a few hundred yards of the US forces.

In October, a special operations soldier was killed in a raid on an IS prison in northern Iraq. In March, an American Marine was killed in an IS attack at a newly established US base outside Mosul.

Over the course of the nearly two-year US-led campaign against the Islamic State group, the Pentagon has slowly expanded the American role in Iraq and increased the presence of US troops.