U.S. soldier killed in Iraq identified as 30-year-old from North Carolina
Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of North Carolina, was "decommissioning ammunition and an accident happened," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Updated on: July 21, 2026 / 10:11 AM EDT / CBS News
A 30-year-old U.S. soldier was killed over the weekend in Iraq during what the U.S. military said was a controlled explosion to destroy an attack drone.
Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton of Fayetteville, North Carolina, was "killed in action during a controlled detonation" of the drone at Erbil Air Base in northern Iraq, the Pentagon said in a statement Tuesday.
The statement made no mention of the projectile being Iranian, but a bulletin from U.S. Central Command on Sunday said it was a " downed Iranian one-way attack drone. "
The incident remains under investigation.
The U.S. military said Swinton was killed Sunday, but the CENTCOM bulletin said he died Saturday.