U.S. navy SEAL killed in combat in Iraq

Third U.S. military member dies in the expanding fight against Daesh in the region

STUTTGART, GERMANY— The combat death Tuesday of a U.S. navy SEAL who was advising Kurdish forces in Iraq coincides with a gradually deepening American role in fighting a resilient Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL), even as the Iraqis struggle to muster the military and political strength to defeat the militants.

Charlie Keating IV, 31, a former Phoenix high school star distance runner and grandson of the late Arizona financier involved in the 1980s savings and loan scandal, is the third American serviceman to die in combat in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition launched its campaign against Daesh in the summer of 2014.

Seven months ago, a special operations soldier, 39-year-old Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, was killed during a Kurdish-led raid on a Daesh prison in northern Iraq. In March, a Marine artilleryman, Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, 27, was killed when the militants launched a rocket attack on a newly established U.S. firebase outside Mosul.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said U.S. President Barack Obama had been briefed on the incident and extended condolences to the Keating family.

Earnest said the incident was a “vivid reminder” of the dangers facing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

“They are taking grave risks to protect our country.

"We owe them a deep debt of gratitude,” Earnest said.

As described by an Iraqi Kurdish intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Manav Dosky, Tuesday’s Daesh attack was launched on Teleskof, about 22 kilometres north of Mosul, just after 6 a.m.

Militants broke through the Kurds’ front-line position with a barrage of armoured Humvees and bulldozers, Dosky said, and clashes killed at least three Kurdish peshmerga fighters.

Keating’s grandfather, Charles H. Keating Jr., who died in 2014 at age 90, was the notorious financier who served prison time for his role in the costliest savings and loan failure of the 1980s.

Charlie Keating attended the Naval Academy before becoming a navy SEAL based out of Coronado, Calif.

ALICE MARTINS/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A Kurdish peshmerga soldier trains in northern Iraq. An American navy SEAL training the peshmerga was killed Tuesday in a Daesh attack.