Pentagon has denied on Monday a claim by the Iranian state media saying that two Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen were killed by a US drone in the Iraqi city of Tikrit.
Pictures of the two men, named as Ali Yazdani and Hadi Jafari, were posted on Iranian news websites after their funerals on home soil.
The Fars news agency called Jafari, 29, from the northern Iranian city of Amol. Yazdani was buried in Tehran, it reported.
However, the US Department of Defense said in a statement that it had not conducted air strikes in the Tikrit area on the date the men were said to have been killed.
'Coalition forces initiated air strikes near Tikrit on March 25, two days after the alleged incident occurred and no air strikes were conducted in or near Tikrit on March 23,' said Major Omar Villarreal, a spokesman for US Central Command.
'We have no information to corroborate claims that coalition air strikes killed two IRGC members,' he added, referring to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups have for weeks been heavily involved in fighting in Tikrit, seeking to reclaim the city from IS.
Iranian media have reported the deaths of military personnel, including several generals, killed in Iraq and Syria after Tehran sent them in support of Baghdad’s government and of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Other Iranians have joined Shiite militia groups as volunteers.
Major General Qassem Suleimani, who leads the Quds Force, the Guard’s foreign wing, has been pictured on social media near the frontline in Tikrit and other battlegrounds, where he is said to be coordinating Shiite militia groups.
Other Revolutionary Guard deaths have included General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi, killed along with six fighters of Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah in an air strike in Syria on January 18.
Brigadier General Hamid Taghavi, also a member of the Guard, was killed in the Iraq in December.
Suleimani was pictured at a funeral ceremony for Taghavi.
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