The Pentagon identified the two Marine Corps Special Forces members killed during a combat operation against an Islamic State stronghold in Iraq over the weekend — the first American combat deaths in the country this year.
Gunnery Sgt. Diego Pongo, 34, was a critical skills operator from Simi Valley, California, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2004 and completed deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, where he earned a Bronze Star for his heroic actions during Operation Enduring Freedom. Pongo, an advanced sniper and fluent in multiple languages, had been a Marine Raider since 2011 and is survived by his daughter and mother.
Capt. Moises Navas, also 34, was a special operations officer born in Panama but who grew up in Germantown, Maryland, and enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2004. He supported two unit deployments to Japan before becoming a Marine Raider in 2016, where he deployed to Iraq multiple times. Navas, known to most as “Mo,” was a martial arts instructor and combat diver, and he left behind a wife, a daughter, and three sons.
Both men served in the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion of the Marine Forces Special Operations Command.
Pongo and Navas were killed Sunday during a joint operation with Iraqi security forces to clear ISIS group fighters from a large cave complex in the northern region of Iraq near Makhmur.
Additional forces were sent out to recover their bodies, according to a statement provided to the Washington Examiner by a spokesperson with the U.S.-led coalition in the region.
“The forces meticulously trekked through mountainous terrain and eliminated four hostile ISIS fighters who were barricaded in the caves. The recovery took approximately six hours,” the statement said. “We can confirm that four ISIS fighters were killed during the recovery operation. The U.S. forces were able to safely recover the two U.S. service members by eliminating the threat.”
The two men’s Marine Raider Regiment commanding officer, Col. John Lynch, said that “both men epitomize what it means to be a Marine Raider” and that “they were intelligent, courageous, and loyal.” Lynch praised them as “dedicated leaders, true professionals in their craft, and willing to go above and beyond for the mission and their team.”
Lynch noted that “they were also family men, adoring husbands, and fathers” and “incredibly humble and truly the quiet professionals that define our Special Operations Forces warriors.”
In total, the Defense Department says that 90 U.S. service members and two Pentagon civilians have been killed during the global coalition’s anti-ISIS effort.
“The loss of these two incredible individuals is being felt across our organization, but it cannot compare to the loss that their families and teammates are experiencing,” Lynch said.
The last U.S. combat death in Iraq had been in August of last year when Gunnery Sgt. Scott Koppenhafer, from the same Marine Raider group as Pongo and Navas, was killed. The United States killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in Syria last October and has essentially eliminated ISIS’s physical caliphate, but the Pentagon’s lead inspector general has warned against declaring premature victory against the terrorist group.
Two Army special forces members, Sgt. 1st Class Javier Jaguar Gutierrez and Sgt. 1st Class Antonio Rey Rodriguez, were killed in action in Afghanistan last month amid the pursuit of a peace deal with the Taliban.
