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The Iraqi militia group "Islamic Resistance Organization" issued a statement on the 13th declaring that they attacked two US military aerial refueling aircraft, and one of them was shot down.
The statement said: "In order to defend our sovereignty and airspace from enemy warplane violations, we shot down a US KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft in western Iraq."
Subsequently, the organization issued another statement, claiming that within the past 24 hours, they attacked a second US KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft in western Iraq, causing the tanker to make a forced landing.
According to the Associated Press, there were at least five crew members aboard the US military refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq.
Earlier, US Central Command posted on social media that a KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq, and rescue operations are still underway. The incident involved two aircraft, one of which crashed in western Iraq while the other landed safely.
US Central Command stated that the incident was not caused by enemy fire or friendly fire.
The KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft is at least the fourth US military aircraft lost in the Middle East war. Previously, three F-15 fighter jets were shot down by friendly fire over Kuwait.