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 The elite serviceman was the third American to be killed in direct
combat since a U.S.-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to
"degrade and destroy" Islamic State and is a measure of its
deepening involvement in the conflict.
"It is a combat death, of course, and a very sad loss," U.S. Defense
Secretary Ash Carter told reporters during a trip to Germany.
A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the dead serviceman was a Navy SEAL.
The SEALs are considered to be among the most able U.S. 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 U.S. 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, in southern California, 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 U.S. savings and loan scandal of the 1980s that
embroiled five U.S. senators.
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 kilometers (17 miles) from the militant
stronghold of Mosul.
The Islamic State insurgents occupied the town at dawn on Tuesday
but were driven out later in the day by the peshmerga. A U.S.
military official said the coalition had helped the peshmerga by
conducting more than 20 air strikes with F-15 jets and drones.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Navy SEAL
was killed "by direct fire" while on a mission to advise and assist
local forces in Iraq.
Carter's spokesman, Peter Cook, said the incident took place during
an Islamic State attack on a peshmerga position some 3 to 5 km
behind the forward line.
SNIPERS AND SUICIDE BOMBERS
In mid-April the United States announced plans to send an additional
200 troops to Iraq and put them closer to the front lines of battle
to advise Iraqi forces in the war against the Islamic State militant
group.
Underscoring the complicated nature of the U.S. role in Iraq, the
White House told reporters that even though the serviceman died in a
combat situation, he was not on a combat mission.
"He was not on the front lines. But he was two miles away, and it
turns out that being two miles away from the front lines between
Iraqi forces and ISIL is a very dangerous place to be," said White
House spokesman Josh Earnest, using an acronym for Islamic State.
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Last month, an Islamic State attack on a U.S. base killed Marine
Staff Sergeant Louis Cardin and wounded eight other Americans
providing force protection fire to Iraqi army troops.
Such Islamic State incursions are rare in northern Iraq, where the
Kurdish peshmerga have pushed the militants back with the help of
coalition air strikes and set up defensive lines that the militants
are rarely able to breach.
The leader of a militia deployed alongside peshmerga in Tel Asqof
said the insurgents had used multiple suicide bombers, some driving
vehicles laden with explosives, to penetrate peshmerga lines.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council said at least 25 Islamic State
vehicles had been destroyed on Tuesday and more than 80 militants
killed. At least 10 peshmerga also died in the fighting, according
to a Kurdish official who posted pictures of the victims on Twitter.
The peshmerga also deflected Islamic State attacks on the Bashiqa
front and in the Khazer area, about 40 km west of the Kurdish
regional capital Erbil, Kurdish military sources said.
The Islamist militants have been broadly retreating since December,
when the Iraqi army recaptured Ramadi, the largest city in the
western region. Last month, the Iraqi army retook the nearby region
of Hit, pushing the militants further north along the Euphrates
valley.
But U.S. officials acknowledge that the military gains against
Islamic State are not enough.
Iraq is beset by political infighting, corruption, a growing fiscal
crisis and the Shi'ite Muslim-led government's fitful efforts to
seek reconciliation with aggrieved minority Sunnis, the bedrock of
Islamic State support.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting
by Isabel Coles in Erbil, Roberta Rampton in Washington, David
Schwartz in Phoenix, and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by
Gareth Jones, Toni Reinhold)
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