Navy SEAL Charlie Keating IV – an adviser to Kurdish troops in Mosul, Iraq – was killed Tuesday in an encounter with Islamic State militants.
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Using suicide bombers, bulldozers and armored trucks, a group of about 125 IS fighters broke through peshmerga defenses and rushed toward Tal Asquf, getting about two miles (3.5 kilometers) beyond the line.
The SEAL, who has not been further identified, is the third US serviceman to die while fighting in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition launched its campaign against the Islamic State in the summer of 2014. He’d also been to Afghanistan once.
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter cautioned on Wednesday of risks ahead in the campaign against Islamic State.
Rocket fire killed a US Marine in northern Iraq in March, while a special forces soldier died of wounds received during a raid in October.
The Pentagon has repeatedly lauded its visibility and control of the battlespace over Iraq in the last several months, noting increased airstrikes and gains by Iraqi forces have made it almost impossible for Islamic State fighters to move in large groups. The plan going forward is for U.S. forces to train smaller units that are more likely to be doing the fighting, rather than advising military headquarters, as they had been doing before.
“When Charlie left IU to enlist and try to become a SEAL, I don’t think it really surprised any of us”, said Robert Chapman, professor of kinesiology at IU Bloomington, who served as IN men’s cross country coach from 1998-2007.
Former teammate Wil Fleming called Keating fearless.
“[But] my experience with the Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] has been that when we go to the President with something that we know will accelerate the progress there he has approved those things – and that has been true in both Iraq and Syria”.
Keating decided at a young age he wanted to be in the Navy, hanging a SEAL poster on his bedroom wall when he was 8 or 9, said his mother, Krista Joseph, of Jacksonville, Florida.
Keating was a grandson of Arizona financier Charles H. Keating Jr. and grew up in Phoenix, where he was a star distance runner in high school.
The 31-year-old sailor graduated from Arcadia High School in Phoenix in 2004.
After graduation, he was assigned to various West Coast based SEAL Teams and Naval Special Warfare training commands. John McCain said in a statement.
The defence secretary also pointed to “the NATO AWACS issue”, in reference to surveillance aircraft of the alliance’s members.
Obama has repeatedly pledged that there would be no “boots on the ground” to combat ISIL, but the administration has since sought to define the term as meaning something other than American forces being on the ground and in combat.
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Keating was lauded and mourned Tuesday in his home state of Arizona where Gov. Doug Ducey ordered the flags lowered to half-staff until he is brought home and buried.
