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, identified by his family as Ayad Sakat. 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.
Relatives and friends described Sergeant Howard, 29, and Sergeant Torres, 25, as dedicated soldiers from close families who were serving their country proudly on a deployment to the Middle East.
Roughly 1,800 troops from Iowa have been in the region since May 2025 as part of a continuing military mission to work with local forces to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Around 250 of the 1,800 Iowans are in Syria, part of a total of about 1,000 American troops in the country.
The two sergeants’ 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.”
“Our son Nate was one of the soldiers that paid the ultimate sacrifice for all of us, to keep us all safer,” he wrote on Saturday in a post shared alongside a photo of Sergeant Howard in uniform. “He loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out, no one left behind.”
Sergeant Howard grew up in Marshalltown, Iowa, about 50 miles northeast of Des Moines. According to a post on a Facebook page affiliated with the Iowa National Guard, he had been serving in the Guard for more than a decade, and was inspired to join by his grandfather. His goal had been to retire after 20 years of service, the post said.
When not on duty with the National Guard, Mr. Howard worked as a laser engraving specialist at a valve manufacturer, Fisher Controls, and enjoyed shooting, woodworking and gaming, the post said.
His wife of three years, Arianna Howard, wrote in a statement to The New York Times that he was “a fun and loving husband” who cared deeply about his country and his fellow soldiers. “He always put everyone first before himself,” she said.
Mr. Bunn wrote on Facebook that Sergeant Howard’s younger brother, Staff Sgt. James Roelsgard, who also serves in the Iowa National Guard and is deployed to the Middle East, “will be escorting Nate home.”
Sergeant Torres was from Des Moines. A soldier who knew him, Specialist Freddy Sarceño, said in an interview that they had known each other since high school, and became close in 2019 when both men enlisted in the National Guard and were assigned to the same unit. They served together on a 2020 deployment to Kosovo.
“After that, we just bonded like brothers,” he said.
He described Sergeant Torres as a faithful Catholic who came from a large family. As soon as he heard about what had happened in Syria, he said, he reached out to Sergeant Torres’s family, who told him that his friend had died doing a job he loved.
Mr. Sakat, 54, grew up in a small Catholic village in Iraq and worked for years as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, according to his daughter, Dina Qiryaqoz. She said he immigrated to the United States in 2007 on a special visa and became a U.S. citizen. He was employed as a linguist by Valiant Integrated Services, a Virginia-based government contractor, and had been working in Syria for more than two years, with his wife and four adult children remaining behind in the United States.
“The news came as a huge shock to our family, and we are still struggling to believe it,” Ms. Qiryaqoz said, adding that serving the United States had “been in his blood for a very long time.”
Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa ordered that all flags in the state be flown at half-staff in honor of the two sergeants, continuing until the evening of the day they are buried.
The three men who were killed in the attack were the first American casualties in Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad, the country’s longtime dictator, a year ago. The last Iowa National Guard member to be killed overseas was Sgt. First Class Terryl Pasker, who died in Afghanistan in July 2011.
The gunman who fired on the American soldiers was killed by Syrian security forces, officials said. President Trump wrote on social media on Saturday that the United States would retaliate against the Islamic State for the attack.
Susan C. Beachy and Georgia Gee contributed research.
Sonia A. Rao reports on disability issues as a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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