IS kills elite US Navy Seal in northern Iraq

The elite serviceman was the third American to be killed in direct combat since a US-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to “degrade and destroy” IS and is a measure of its deepening involvement in the conflict. “It is a combat death, of course, and a very sad loss,” US Defence Secretary Ash Carter told reporters during a trip to Germany. A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the dead serviceman was a Navy SEAL.

The SEALs are considered to be among the most able US special operations forces and capable of taking on dangerous missions. The serviceman’s identity and rank were not disclosed by the Pentagon. The governor of the US state of Arizona, Doug Ducey, identified the slain serviceman as Charlie Keating IV, and said Keating had attended high school in Phoenix.

The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper cited unnamed SEALs and their family members in reporting that Keating was the grandson of Charles Keating Jr., a banker who played a leading role in the US savings and loan scandal of the 1980s. A senior official within the Kurdish peshmerga forces facing Islamic State in northern Iraq said the man had been killed near the town of Tel Asqof, around 28 kilometres from the militant stronghold of Mosul. The IS insurgents occupied the town at dawn on Tuesday but were driven out later in the day by the peshmerga. A US military official said the coalition had helped the peshmerga by conducting more than 20 air strikes. He said the Navy SEAL was killed “by direct fire” while on a mission to advise and assist local forces. Carter’s spokesman, Peter Cook, said the incident took place during an IS attack on a peshmerga position.