U.S. Soldiers Killed in Syria Identified as Iowa National Guard Sergeants [View all]

Source: New York Times

The two Iowa National Guard soldiers who were killed by a gunman in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, the Guard said in a statement on Monday.

The gunman also killed an American civilian contractor who was working as an interpreter and has not been named by officials yet. Three more Iowa National Guard soldiers were injured in the attack, two of them seriously enough to require evacuation. All the soldiers involved were assigned to the 113th Cavalry Regiment, a part of the 34th Infantry Division.

About 1,800 Iowa Army National Guard troops were deployed to the Middle East in May as part of a continuing military mission to work with local forces to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Roughly 250 of the Iowa troops are in Syria, part of a total of about 1,000 American troops in the country.

The soldiers’ next of kin were notified over the weekend. Sergeant Howard’s stepfather — Chief Jeffrey Bunn of the Meskwaki Nation Police Department in Tama, Iowa — wrote on Facebook that he and his wife had received “that visit from Army commanders you never want to have.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/15/us/syria-killed-soldiers-iowa-national-guard.html