Pentagon: ISIS Attack Was a Surprise

The ISIS attack on Kurdish forces in Iraq that left U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Charles Keating dead was a surprise, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday. Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said had security forces anticipated the attack, they might have responded differently to it. “Perhaps this could have been avoided. That’s certainly something that we’re looking at carefully. This particular attack was not anticipated and we were forced to respond,” he said. Keating was the third U.S. service member to be killed in combat since U.S. forces returned to Iraq in 2014.