US, allies agree to do more to combat Islamic State
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on May 4 that Washington and its allies had agreed to do more in their campaign to defeat Islamic State but that more risks lay ahead.
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He said the United States greatly regretted the death of a Navy SEAL in an attack by the jihadist group in northern Iraq on May 3. He named the man as Petty Officer First Class Charles Keating.
"These risks will continue ... but allowing ISIL safe haven would carry greater risk for us all," he added, using an acronym for Islamic State.
"We also agreed that all of our friends and allies across the counter-ISIL coalition can and must do more as well, both to confront ISIL in Iraq and Syria and its metastases elsewhere."
The talks included ministers from France, Britain and Germany and were planned well in advance of May 3's attack, in which Islamic State fighters blasted through Kurdish defenses and overran a town.
The elite serviceman was the third American to be killed in direct combat since the US-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to "degrade and destroy" Islamic State, and is a measure of its deepening involvement in the conflict.
Offering new details about Keating's mission, Carter said the SEAL's job was to operate with Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces to train and assist them north of the city of Mosul.
"That part of the peshmerga front came under attack ... and they found themselves in a firefight," Carter said.
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 late April, President Barack Obama announced he would send an additional 250 special operations forces to Syria, greatly expanding the US presence on the ground there to help draw in more Syrian fighters to combat Islamic State.
