Pentagon identifies U.S. special forces troops killed in Jordan

The Pentagon has released the identities of the three Army Special Forces troops killed in an apparent ambush outside a military base in Jordan.

Staff Sgts. Matthew Lewellen, Kevin McEnroe and James Moriarty were killed Friday when their convoy came under fire as it entered King Faizal air base in Al Jafr, roughly 130 miles south of Amman.

The slain soldiers, with the 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, were in Jordan working as military advisers attached to Operation Inherent Resolve, the Pentagon’s moniker for the U.S.-led mission against Islamic State.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said department officials and Jordanian authorities were investigating the chain of events leading up to the fatal attack.

“We are working closely with the government of Jordan to determine exactly what happened,” Mr. Cook said Friday in a statement.

According a video of the incident, recorded by closed-circuit security monitors outside the base, a Jordanian soldier opened fire on the U.S. convoy as it approached the air base’s security perimeter, a Jordanian official told The New York Times on Saturday.

Defense officials in Amman claim the solider only opened fire on the Americans after the convoy failed to stop as it approached a security checkpoint, the Times reports.

Jordan and the United States have had long-standing military ties, particularly in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.

Those ties were only strengthened last January, when ISIS captured Jordanian pilot Muath Safi Yousef Al-Kasasbeh after his F-16 crash landed over Syria. The terrorist group subsequently issued a propaganda video in which the pilot was burned alive, stoking anger and calls for retribution by Jordanian officials.