Pentagon identifies two US Army soldiers killed in Syria attack
Syria's government said it arrested five people on Sunday following the attack that killed three Americans and wounded several others, but it has offered no clarity about how the gunman was able to approach what should have been a secure meeting.
WASHINGTON — The US Army on Monday released the names of two National Guard soldiers whom the Pentagon previously said were killed in an attack by a Syrian gunman in Palmyra on Saturday.
Sgt. Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, both from the Iowa National Guard, “died of injuries sustained while engaging with hostile forces,” the Department of the US Army announced Monday.
Tovar and Howard were part of a larger US convoy visiting the central Syrian city of Palmyra for planned meetings with officials from Syria’s Interior Ministry, which has been increasingly coordinating with the limited US troop presence in the country on operations to track down remaining ISIS figures.
In a press release published on Sunday, the Interior Ministry condemned the attack, which it attributed to “an ISIS member” who “infiltrated the meeting and opened fire on the joint Syrian-American forces.”
The ministry “strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act, considering it a deliberate attempt to destabilize security and undermine joint efforts to combat terrorism,” the statement read.
It also noted that officials with Syria’s new government, which came to power after a rebel coalition led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and headed by now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa ousted former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, had previously warned US counterparts about "ISIS’ persistent attempts to carry out attacks.”
ISIS has not claimed credit for the attack, which also left two Syrian security personnel wounded along with three other US soldiers. A third American — a female civilian contractor working as an interpreter — was also killed. Her identity has not yet been released by the Pentagon.
US President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed retaliation against ISIS and signaled his continued support for Sharaa’s government, characterizing the attack as having targeted both “us and Syria.”
Syria’s Interior Ministry said Sunday it had arrested five people suspected of having ties to the shooting.
The ministry’s spokesperson, Noureddine al-Baba, told Syria’s Al-Ekhbariya news on Saturday that the attacker — who was killed during the firefight outside the meeting — was recently discovered to have held “extremist” views, but that a decision about whether to detain him was set for Sunday, the day after he carried out the attack.
Baba sought to distance the attacker from his affiliation with Syria’s internal security forces, saying he was neither part of the entourage's escort nor tied to senior ministry leadership.
It remains unclear how the assailant was able to approach the meeting in Palmyra, which lies dozens of miles outside the US military’s nearest sphere of operations farther south along the Jordan-Iraq-Syrian border.
A spokesperson for US Central Command declined to speculate about what the Pentagon has described as an ongoing investigation. The status of the three other wounded American soldiers was not immediately clear on Monday.
