The Pentagon said Thursday that the ISIS ambush on Kurdish forces in Iraq that killed a U.S. Navy SEAL was a surprise, and could have turned out differently if they had anticipated it.
(FOX)- U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Keating was killed in the attack. Keating is the third U.S. service member to be killed in combat in Iraq since forces returned there in 2014.
“Obviously, had we had the forces there, been able to see this attack coming, they would have responded differently to it,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said. “Perhaps this could have been avoided. That’s certainly something that we’re looking at carefully. This particular attack was not anticipated and we were forced to respond.”
Keating, 31, was shot when he and other special operations forces went to the rescue of U.S. forces who were caught in a gun battle involving more than 100 ISIS fighters, Army Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday.
The small team of American advisers went to Tel Askuf, about 14 miles north of Mosul, to meet with Kurdish Peshmerga troops Tuesday morning. Warren said ISIS fighters launched a large, complex attack on the Peshmerga there around 7:30 a.m. local time, with armored Humvees and bulldozers, and broke through the front lines.
Warren said it was one of the largest attacks that ISIS had launched in recent months, and it came in the wake of several recent defeats of militants in that region.