Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook has confirmed that a U.S. Navy SEAL assisting Kurdish Peshmerga fighters was killed near Irbil, Iraq, on Tuesday. The SEAL was 2-3 miles behind the frontline when ISIS car bombs and fighters forced an opening, allowing for the attack on the coalition’s position.
Cook pledged in a statement that the coalition will honor the unidentified SEAL’s sacrifice by continuing to dismantle ISIS until it suffers a lasting defeat.
ISIS uses car bombs the way many modern militaries use artillery — to soften up enemy defenses during an assault by other fighters. The U.S. responded with 20 airstrikes.
The SEAL’s name has not yet been released. It’s typical for the Department of Defense to withhold the identity of a service member killed in the line of duty until at least 24 hours after the notification of the next of kin.
Two other U.S. service members have died in the fight against ISIS. Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Cardin was killed Mar. 19 by an ISIS rocket attack while securing a newly-established U.S. base with other Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The fighter who most likely killed Cardin was later killed in a U.S. drone attack.
Army Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler was a Delta Force operator who was working with Kurdish commandos when a tip came in that a large number of ISIS-held hostages were about to be executed. Wheeler and other U.S. and Kurdish special operators stormed the prison where the hostages were being kept and rescued them, but Wheeler was killed in the gunfight on Oct. 22, 2015.
Roughly 3,700 troops are deployed to Iraq and 50 have been deployed to Syria. An announced deployment of 250 more troops to Syria will bring the total there to 300.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has said that the fight against ISIS is serious, and America isn’t backing down.