WASHINGTON (AP) — The two Iowa National Guard members killed in a weekend attack that the U.S. military blamed on the Islamic State group in Syria were identified Monday.
The U.S. Army named them as Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered all flags in Iowa to fly at half-staff in their honor, saying that, “We are grateful for their service and deeply mourn their loss.”
The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, has said a civilian working as a U.S. interpreter also was killed. Three other Guard members were wounded in the attack, the Iowa National Guard said Monday, with two of them in stable condition and the other in good condition.
The attack was a major test for the rapprochement between the United States and Syria since the ouster of autocratic leader Bashar Assad a year ago, coming as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces. Hundreds of American troops are deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.
The shooting Saturday in the Syrian desert near the historic city of Palmyra also wounded members of the country's security forces and killed the gunman. The assailant had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months ago and recently was reassigned amid suspicions that he might be affiliated with IS, a Syrian official said.
The man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards, Interior Ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba said Sunday.
Al-Baba acknowledged that the incident was “a major security breach” but said that in the year since Assad’s fall, “there have been many more successes than failures” by security forces.
The Army said Monday that the incident is under investigation, but military officials have blamed the attack on an IS member.
President Donald Trump said over the weekend that “there will be very serious retaliation” for the attack and that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa was “devastated by what happened,” stressing that Syria was fighting alongside U.S. troops.
Trump welcomed al-Sharaa, who led the lightning insurgency that toppled Assad's rule, to the White House for a historic meeting last month.
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Associated Press writer Abby Sewell in Beirut contributed to this report.
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