A United States Navy SEAL, identified as Charles Keating IV, has been killed by Islamic State militants during a direct firefight with U.S. forces and Kurdish Peshmerga troops in northern Iraq.
He is the first American combat casualty since the U.S. redeployed forces to Iraq in the summer of 2014.
Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook yesterday said that Keating, 31, was an adviser to Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting ISIS.
The Pentagon officials confirmed that he died as a result of a "coordinated and complex attack" by roughly 100 ISIS fighters nearly 30 km (18.6 miles) north of Mosul.
"This sad news is a reminder of the dangers our men and women in uniform face every day in the ongoing fight to destroy ISIL and end the threat the group poses to the United States and the rest of the world. Our coalition will honor this sacrifice by dealing ISIL a lasting defeat," CNN quoted Cook as saying.
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Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed the reports in Germany and said that the death shows "it's a serious fight that we have to wage in Iraq."
Keating was the grandson of savings-and-loan financier Charles Keating Jr. He came from a long line of devoted service members. His great-grandfather Charles Keating, served in World War I, and grandfather, Charles Keating Jr. was a Naval pilot in World War II.
Apart from mourning his death in his home of Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey has ordered flags in the state to be lowered to half-mast on Wednesday in his honor.
According to an U.S. defense official, ISIS used multiple vehicles, suicide car bombs and bulldozers to break through a checkpoint at the front line and drive 3 to 5 km (1.9 to 3.1 miles) to the Peshmerga base where SEALs were temporarily visiting and were located as advisers.
He said that gun battle took place around the town of Telskof in northern Iraq. He added that U.S. responded with F-15s and drones that dropped more than twenty bombs.
