Going to aid of Iraqi militia, SEAL killed outside Mosul

In this April 28, 2016 file photo, Defense Secretary Ash Carter testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.
In this April 28, 2016 file photo, Defense Secretary Ash Carter testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington.

BAGHDAD -- A U.S Navy SEAL was killed Tuesday by fire from the Islamic State extremist group outside the militant-held city of Mosul as the U.S. expands its role in the northern part of Iraq.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter called it a "combat death."

The SEAL was identified by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday night as Charlie Keating IV, 31, of Phoenix. Ducey ordered all state flags lowered to half-staff from sunrise to sunset tonight in honor of Keating, who was a graduate of Phoenix's Arcadia High School. Keating attended the Naval Academy before becoming a SEAL based out of Coronado, Calif.

The military did not immediately reveal the SEAL's identity, keeping in line with military procedure to first notify next of kin.

The SEAL is the third U.S. serviceman to die while fighting in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition began its campaign against the Islamic State in the summer of 2014. In October, a special operations soldier was killed in a raid on an Islamic State prison in northern Iraq. In March, a Marine was killed in an Islamic State attack at a newly established U.S. base outside Mosul.

Over the course of the nearly two-year U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State, the Pentagon has slowly expanded the American role in Iraq and increased the presence of U.S. troops.

The Islamic State opened the attack on Teleskof, about 14 miles north of Mosul, just after 6 a.m., said Lt. Col. Manav Dosky, an Iraqi Kurdish intelligence officer. Islamic State broke fighters through a front-line position with armored Humvees and bulldozers, Dosky said, and clashes killed at least three Kurdish peshmerga fighters. The SEAL was among Americans advising the Kurds during that battle.

Maj. Gen. Jabbar Yawar, the peshmerga spokesman, said the American was killed by Islamic State sniper fire.

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the death publicly, said the American was killed with small-arms fire suggesting that Islamic State fighters were within a few hundred yards of the U.S. forces.

The Americans were 2 to 3 miles behind that front line before the attack, the official added.

U.S. forces will continue to stay "deliberately behind the front lines," the defense official said, but he acknowledged that the U.S. expects more ground fighting as the Iraqi and Kurdish militaries, backed by the U.S., push farther into Islamic State-controlled territory.

Maj. Gen. Azad Jalil, a peshmerga officer, said Islamic State fighters breached Kurdish lines with more than 10 car bombs, also using bulldozers to push through.

The peshmerga then made a "tactical retreat" to reorganize the forces, he said. Islamic State militants overran the village.

Brig. Gen. Bahnam Aboush, a fighter with the Christian militia based in the town and known as the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, said his men tried to hold their ground but were overwhelmed.

"We tried to fight them, but we couldn't due [to] our limited capabilities," he said. "We have only some old rifles we bought from our own money."

He said he witnessed the attack that mortally wounded the Navy SEAL, when a U.S. military contingent arrived to assist their struggling forces.

"American special forces came to rescue us in four vehicles," he said. "They opened the way for us to retreat, then one of their vehicles was hit" with a rocket-propelled grenade.

He said one U.S. service member was seriously injured and was airlifted out by helicopter. "I heard he died after," he said.

A Kurdish official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, also said the U.S. service member died as he was being transported out of the area.

The pace of operations against the Islamic State is expected to increase in coming months as Iraqi forces prepare to retake Mosul, the country's second-largest city, which has been in the hands of Islamic State militants since 2014.

Carter and Vice President Joe Biden recently have visited Baghdad in an effort to resolve internal political strife and concentrate on the effort to defeat the Islamic State group. President Barack Obama's administration has been pressing the effort against the Islamic State, which has been slowed down in its quest to overrun Iraq.

Carter first announced the Tuesday death while traveling in Stuttgart, Germany.

"This sad news is a reminder of the dangers our men and women in uniform face everyday in the ongoing fight to destroy ISIL and end the threat the group poses to the United States and the rest of the world," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said in a statement.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, "Today's incident is a vivid reminder of the risk our service members are taking, and three of them now have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country."

He stressed that the U.S. mission in Iraq "is to support Iraqi forces on the ground that are taking the fight" to the Islamic State and that "Iraqi forces must fight for their own country."

Information for this article was contributed by Susannah George, Robert Burns, Deb Riechmann, Sinan Salaheddin and Balint Szlanko of The Associated Press and by Loveday Morris, Dan Lamothe and Mustafa Salim, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and William Branigin of The Washington Post.

A Section on 05/04/2016

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