Titan ReloadingLee PrecisionMidSouth Shooters SupplyLoad Data
PBcastcoWidenersRepackboxInline Fabrication
Reloading Everything RotoMetals2
Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: 3rd US Military Death in Islamic State Fight - USN SEAL Charles Keating IV

  1. #1
    Boolit Grand Master Artful's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Valley of the SUNs, AZ
    Posts
    9,254

    3rd US Military Death in Islamic State Fight - USN SEAL Charles Keating IV


    R.I.P U.S. Navy, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charles Keating IV

    http://www.stripes.com/navy-seal-kil...ified-1.407568
    WASHINGTON — A Navy SEAL was killed in combat Tuesday during an attack by Islamic State group fighters in northern Iraq, Pentagon officials said.


    The servicemember was killed near the city of Irbil, said Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who announced the death in Stuttgart, Germany, where he presided over a change of command at U.S. European Command headquarters.


    A defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. servicemember killed was a Navy SEAL.


    The SEAL was identified Tuesday as Charlie Keating IV, 31, who grew up in Phoenix and attended the Naval Academy before becoming a SEAL based out of Coronado, California. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said Keating died in an Islamic State group attack near the city of Irbil.


    Keating is the third American servicemember killed in combat since the U.S.-led coalition entered the war against the Islamic State group in 2014.


    Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said the incident occurred north of Mosul during an Islamic State group attack on a peshmerga fighting position. Mosul, which was captured by Islamic State fighters in 2014, is used by the terrorist group as its capital in Iraq. The city is about 50 miles west of Irbil, which is Iraqi-controlled and used by U.S. forces to train Iraqi forces.


    Cook said the servicemember worked as an adviser to the peshmerga, a Kurdish fighting group that has been a close ally to the United States and considered the most effective fighting force in northern Iraq. He was working at a position located about three to five kilometers behind the peshmerga’s front lines, Cook said.


    Another defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity told Stars and Stripes that the incident occurred at about 9:30 a.m. Tuesday after Islamic State group fighters attacked. Two defense officials said Islamic State fighters used vehicle-borne explosives to breach the peshmerga’s front line and then were able to reach the SEAL’s position, where he was killed by small-arms fire.


    At the time, U.S. and coalition jets provided air support to help peshmerga fighters counter the offensive. Using F-15 fighter jets and drones, they conducted 23 airstrikes during the fight.


    The official said he did not know how many peshmerga fighters were hurt or killed in the attack. He also said no other U.S. casualties were known at this time.


    U.S. forces are moving closer to the front lines as they assist the peshmerga and Iraq’s 15th Army Division in preparing to retake Mosul, which has raised questions whether U.S. forces are back in ground combat in Iraq. On Tuesday, Carter was direct in his assessment on the loss.


    “It is a combat death of course,” he said.


    The death comes after a recent announcement that the United States would send an additional 217 troops to assist in the fight to retake Mosul, most of whom are expected to be Army Special Forces, Green Berets.


    Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that the 217 troops are not in Iraq yet.


    The United States is also sending $415 million to the Kurds to help pay for supplies for their forces and recently authorized providing hundreds of armored vehicles and millions of rounds of ammunition to further bolster the peshmerga.


    In October, Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, a member of the Army’s Delta Force, was killed during a rescue operation to save hostages held by the Islamic State group. In March, Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Cardin was killed in a rocket attack at Fire Base Bell in northern Iraq.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...70d_story.html
    Third U.S. combat death comes as American troops edge closer to the front lines in Iraq

    MAKHMOUR, Iraq — At the base of a rocky ridge rising from the surrounding farmland, the barrels of American artillery poke out from under camouflage covers, their sights trained on Islamic State-held positions.


    Less than 10 miles from the front lines in the push toward the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the U.S. outpost, known as Firebase Bell, is manned by about 200 Marines.


    “Having them here has raised the morale of our fighters,” said Lt. Col. Helan Mahmood, the head of a commando regiment in the Iraqi army, as his truck bumped along the dirt track that divides his base from the American encampment, ringed by razor wire and berms.

    “If there’s any movement from the enemy, they bomb immediately,” he said.


    The new firebase is part of a creeping U.S. buildup in Iraq since troops first returned to the country with a contingent of 275 advisers, described at the time by the Pentagon as a temporary measure to help get “eyes on the ground.”




    Now, nearly two years later, the official troop count has mushroomed to 4,087, not including those on temporary rotations, a number that has not been disclosed.


    The troops are moving outside the confines of more established bases to give closer support to the Iraqi army as it prepares for an assault on the northern city of Mosul — putting them closer to danger.


    On Tuesday, a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed by “direct fire” about three miles from the front lines north of Mosul after Islamic State fighters penetrated Kurdish peshmerga forces, U.S. officials said. It was the third U.S. combat death in Iraq linked to the fight against the Islamic State.


    The shift to give closer support to Iraqis comes at a time of political turmoil in Baghdad, which is threatening the legitimacy of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the key partner for the United States. Iraqi commanders said they are concerned that the crisis will complicate and slow progress on the battlefield.


    It was inside Firebase Bell, a few miles outside Makhmour, a small mixed Arab and Kurdish town on the edge of Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, that Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Cardin was killed on March 19 in a rocket attack, days after the Marines arrived here.




    The area is prone to attack. Islamic State fighters sneak out at night to position explosives on the roads here and have sent a steady flow of suicide bombers to Iraqi army and Kurdish positions.


    “One managed to infiltrate the base here,” said Mahmood, pointing toward the main gate of his base, the headquarters of the Iraqi army’s 15th Division, just a few hundred yards from Firebase Bell. The assault, which included five suicide bombers, also took place shortly after the Marines arrived, he said.


    “We eliminated them,” he said, adding that none of his own men were killed in the attack.


    Iraqi army soldiers stand outside a house on the edge of Kharbadan, Iraq, on April 19. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)


    Before the U.S. troops and their M777 Howitzers moved here, the base came under regular fire.


    A propaganda video released recently by the Islamic State showed a montage of clips of rockets and mortar rounds being launched toward the Iraqi army positions around Makhmour.


    “I’m jealous of you because you are going to heaven,” a militant said to a bearded fighter who was leaving for a suicide mission.




    A Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP, is used to clear improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, last month from a road controlled by the Iraqi army on the outskirts of Kharbadan. Islamic State militants frequently infiltrate the area to plant IEDs by the side of the road. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)


    The attacks have since subsided, but Iraqi troops are still struggling to recapture the Islamic State-held village of Nasr, eight miles from the base, despite launching an offensive shortly after Cardin’s death.


    After an overnight battle, the Iraqi forces withdrew in order to avoid casualties, Iraqi commanders said.


    The village was heavily rigged with explosives. The Islamic State sent car bombs.

    “It was a fierce fight,” said Mahmood, who like many of the other soldiers here was with the Iraqi army in Mosul when it collapsed so spectacularly two years ago. Since then, he has completed 4½ months of training with the U.S.-led coalition.


    He deemed the Nasr operation a success because dozens of militants were killed, even if the territory wasn’t held. “My regiment isn’t specialized in holding ground,” he said. “We liberate and then withdraw.”


    Mahmood chuckled and shrugged when asked whether there were still no U.S. “boots on the ground” in Iraq, as President Obama initially repeatedly pledged.


    “They’ve become more active, and for us, it’s had a positive result,” he said.


    But the battle for Nasr was a faltering first step for the 5,000 freshly trained Iraqi troops in Makhmour, and an indication of the level of hand-holding by U.S. forces that will be required as these forces move toward Mosul.


    The Iraqi troops have recaptured a cluster of hamlets and villages in the vicinity of Makhmour, though reports were mixed on how heavy the Islamic State presence was there before the Iraqi advance.


    In Kharbadan, one village they seized, bodies still lay rotting in the sun.

    On a dusty track there, Iraqi soldiers pointed out other hamlets and clusters of mud buildings they had regained. The Iraqi army also said it had cleared nearby Mahana on Wednesday.



    An Iraqi army soldier stands by the decomposing body of an Islamic State militant killed in battle days before in Kharbadan last month. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)



    The inching gains have helped secure the base near Makhmour, but the Iraqi forces are heavily dependent on American firepower to move forward. U.S. artillery and airstrikes destroyed 30 or 40 Islamic State rocket and artillery positions in the area, said Maj. Gen. Najim al-Jabouri, head of Nineveh Operations Command, who is overseeing the buildup.

    “They know very well it’s not just the Iraqi army in the field,” he said. “It’s also the American air force and advisers with us, and artillery.”


    An operation for Mosul itself still appears distant, though. It will involve coordinating a mix of Sunni tribal fighters, Kurdish forces, Iraqi armed forces and Shiite and Christian militias, putting U.S. forces in the midst of a potentially drawn-out and complex battle for the ethnically and religiously mixed region.


    Abadi, also commander in chief of Iraq’s armed forces, faces the challenge of corralling them at a time when he is also fighting to steer the country out of its political crisis. Hundreds of protesters stormed parliament over the weekend demanding reform, in a major security breach.


    Jabouri’s own position is indicative of how politics can often complicate the battlefield in Iraq.

    The commander, who was praised by then-President George W. Bush for his work to curb sectarian violence during the Iraq War, returned to the country last year after living in Virginia for eight years. He was directly appointed by Abadi, and his relationship with the Defense Ministry is openly fractious.


    Jabouri admits that has caused “some problems.”


    “It’s like a miracle here,” he said. “Just the Iraqi army without any tanks, without any support, just from the American forces.”



    Iraqi soldiers are seen in their base in Makhmour. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

    Unlike on other battlefields in Iraq, the army here is not supported by counterterrorism forces, the country’s most elite troops, who have led the offensives for Hit and Ramadi. In any real push for Mosul, they’ll be needed, Jabouri said. However, some of those already stretched special forces units have been recalled to the capital because of the problems there.


    Jabouri hopes some tanks will arrive soon but is also in need of more troops, police and engineering units, he said.


    The United States has said it will provide close air support from Apache helicopter gunships for Mosul, but that also puts pilots at risk of being shot down.


    The battle will require coordination with the Kurdish regional government in the north, which has a strained relationship with Baghdad and complains that it lacks military support.


    “There are political problems,” said Mahdi Younis, a commander with the Kurdish peshmerga forces. “If they want us to participate, they should supply us like they are supplying the Iraqi army,” he said of the United States, which currently supplies its military support to Iraq through Baghdad.


    While Iraqi forces in Makhmour are equipped with U.S.-supplied M-16s, the peshmerga tote old Kalashnikovs.


    Jabouri wouldn’t give a specific timeline for the offensive but said it would be “soon,” although even before the dramatic ransacking of Iraq’s parliament Saturday, he expressed concern that the country’s political crisis would have an impact.
    Last edited by Artful; 05-07-2016 at 05:59 PM.
    je suis charlie

    It is better to live one day as a LION than a dozen days as a Sheep.

    Thomas Jefferson Quotations:
    "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

  2. #2
    Boolit Grand Master Artful's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Valley of the SUNs, AZ
    Posts
    9,254
    http://www.stripes.com/news/us/slain...-star-1.407681



    Slain Navy SEAL known for family but made name as track star

    PHOENIX — Charlie Keating IV, who died in a gunfight with militants in Iraq, was known in Phoenix for his family name but forged his own path as a high school and college track star and then as a Navy SEAL.

    He was shot and killed Tuesday during a gunbattle that involved more than 100 Islamic State fighters, Army Col. Steve Warren said. The Navy Petty Officer 1st Class was part of a quick reaction force that moved in to help American military advisers who came under attack.

    "He was our golden boy and he had a million-dollar smile. And he had the best luck in the world, and he always made it through, so that's why this is so shocking," his mother, Krista Joseph, said during a telephone interview Wednesday.

    Keating, a grandson of an Arizona financier involved in the 1980s savings and loan scandal, was the third American serviceman to die in combat in Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition launched its campaign against the Islamic State group in summer 2014, military officials said.

    Joseph said her son had wanted to be a Navy SEAL from a young age and even put a SEAL poster on his bedroom wall at age 8 or 9. He would only enlist in the Navy if he was allowed to take basic underwater training, which is the first hurdle to eventually becoming a SEAL, she said.

    "He would not join until they gave him a shot," Joseph said.

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

    The scandal also shook the political world. Five senators who received campaign donations from the elder Keating were accused of impropriety for appealing to regulators on his behalf in 1987.

    The grandfather went to prison when Charlie was young, and other children reportedly made fun of him.

    "What happened in the past, I really don't care. I'm really close to him," the younger Keating told The Arizona Republic in 2004 when he ran in the Class 4A state track and field championships in suburban Phoenix.

    That's where his grandfather watched him compete for the first time.

    A 2004 graduate of Phoenix's Arcadia High School, Charlie Keating was city and regional champion in the 1,600-meter run as a sophomore, junior and senior.

    Rob Reniewicki, Keating's former high school track coach, said he had kept in touch with Keating through Facebook and that Keating was planning to get married in November.

    "He was a tremendous athlete, a tremendous person. I'm devastated," Reniewicki told Phoenix TV station KTVK.

    Keating ran track and cross country from 2004-06 at Indiana University, where his father was a three-time All-America swimmer from 1974-77 and finished fifth in the breaststroke at the 1976 Olympics.

    Keating was a member of the 2004-05 Hoosiers team that was Big Ten Conference runner-up in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. He competed in the mile run.

    "When Charlie left IU to enlist and try to become a SEAL, I don't think it really surprised any of us," said Robert Chapman, professor of kinesiology at IU Bloomington, who served as Indiana men's cross country coach from 1998 to 2007.

    "You could tell he was a guy who wanted to be the best and find out what he was made of, and serving as special operations forces for his country embodied that," Chapman said.

    Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey ordered all state flags lowered to half-staff Wednesday in honor of Keating.

    "Like so many brave Americans who came before him, Charlie sacrificed his life in honorable service to our nation for a cause greater than self-interest, which we can never truly repay," U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a statement.
    je suis charlie

    It is better to live one day as a LION than a dozen days as a Sheep.

    Thomas Jefferson Quotations:
    "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

  3. #3
    Boolit Grand Master

    Join Date
    Jun 2013
    Location
    NW GA
    Posts
    7,243
    RIP warrior

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check