A handout image made available by Iran’s FARS News Agency on July 5, 2014, shows mourners attending the funeral of an Iranian pilot at a mosque in the city of Shiraz, on Friday.

TEHRAN: An Iranian pilot has been killed while fighting in Iraq, state media reported Saturday, in what is thought to be Tehran’s first military casualty during battles against Islamic State fighters.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency did not say whether the pilot died while flying sorties or fighting on the ground.

It said Col. Shoja’at Alamdari Mourjani was killed while “defending” Shiite holy sites in the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

His death comes after Iran’s declarations that it will provide its western neighbor with whatever it needs to counter the militants who are laying siege to the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.

Samarra is a major flashpoint in the fighting and is home to the Shiite Al-Askari shrine which was bombed by Al-Qaeda in February 2006, sparking a bloody Sunni-Shiite sectarian war that killed tens of thousands.

The reports of the pilot’s death came as Iranian officials insist their assistance is not in the form of troops, but rather of weapons and equipment if Iraq asks for them.

The Fars news agency appeared to confirm the IRNA report, publishing photos of a funeral service for the pilot on Friday in his home province of Fars, in southern Iran.

Fars did not give any details, but hinted that Alamdari Mourjani was a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, whose elite Quds Force is believed to be on the ground and assisting Iraqi forces, despite Tehran’s denials.

[wpResize]