BAGJDAD: Kurdish authorities said their troops conducted a joint raid with US forces Thursday, killing a jihadist financier near a western Iraqi town that is far from where they usually operate.
"A joint operation was conducted by our Directorate General of Counter Terrorism and US Special Forces in the vicinity of Al-Qaim near the Iraqi-Syrian border," the Kurdish Regional Security Council said in a statement.
It said the raid killed Sami Jassem Mohammed al-Juburi, a man sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for supervising operations to fund the Islamic State group, including via the sale of oil and gas.
The statement did not specify the exact location of the operation.
But Al-Qaim is located over 200 kilometres (125 miles) from the closest Kurdish lines, and the raid could be viewed as an intrusion by Iraq's federal government which is at odds with the Kurds over long-running disputes about resources and territory.
The raid, which was not immediately confirmed by the US, would not be the first that risked running afoul of internal Iraqi politics.
American troops and Kurdish forces affiliated with the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party conducted a raid last year in Kirkuk province, which is controlled by the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a party that has its own forces.
A US-led coalition is carrying out air strikes targeting IS, which overran large areas of Iraq in 2014, and also providing advise and other assistance to forces battling the jihadists.
US President Barack Obama repeatedly pledged that there would be no "boots on the ground" to combat IS, but has sent American special forces to target the jihadists, who have so far killed three members of the US military.