DOHUK, Kurdistan Region – US Navy SEAL Charles Keating who was killed in Tel Skof last week died trying to save five Peshmerga soldiers from falling into Islamic State (ISIS) hands, a Kurdish Peshmerga who witnessed the scene told Rudaw. Mam Hassan, a Peshmerga on the Tel Skof front who was involved in the fighting last Tuesday, said that the quick action of the Navy Seals – including 31-year-old Keating – had saved the five Peshmerga soldiers from probable capture or death at the hands of ISIS. The five were trapped and fully surrounded by militants as a result of the group’s surprise attack on the Kurdish defense lines on May 3 in the Christian town north of Mosul. “When the Americans heard that the five Peshmerga were in danger they rushed into the town in four Hummers, one of them with a machine-gun on top, and fought for three hours until the five Peshmerga were rescued,” Hassan told Rudaw in an exclusive interview. He added that some of the Peshmerga were caught by surprise in the ISIS attack on Tel Skof, 28 kilometers north of Mosul, including five Kurdish soldiers who immediately took position inside a house. “Shortly afterwards a number of ISIS militants entered a house next door to them and we all thought the five were done for,” recounted Hassan, who with a group of his comrades fired back on ISIS from the foot of a nearby mountain. “We thought they will either get killed or captured by ISIS.” Hassan revealed that Keating, a native of San Diego, was hit by a bullet and killed as he was trying to get back inside their vehicles with several of the other Navy SEALs. “The US SEALs tried to get back into their cars and get away, so that helicopters could arrive and bomb the area, when at that moment one of them was hit by a bullet,” said Hassan. Rizgar Kistayi, a Peshmerga commander on the front, recalled the moment the Navy SEALs arrived back in base following the fierce fight. “We saw the American team as they returned and got out of their vehicles,” Kistayi told Rudaw. “That advisor (Keating) was wounded but died by the time the emergency helicopters got there.” The commander of the Spilk base intelligence gathering, Brigadier Maran Surchi, described Keating as a “calm but serious person.” “I met Charles twice in three months,” said Brig. Surchi. “The second time he came with me to the front. He was really a brave man.”
