DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. (AP) — President Donald Trump paid his respects Wednesday to two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.
Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before he joined top military officials and other dignitaries on the tarmac for the dignified transfer, a solemn and largely silent ritual honoring U.S. service members killed in action.
The guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar's and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard.
Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, a U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, was also killed. Three other Iowa National Guard members were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.
They were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
Returning to Joint Base Andrews after the transfer, Trump said it was a "beautiful event for three great people. And they’re now looking down and their parents and wives and all of the people that were there were, I mean, were devastated but great people, great people.”
The return of service mem
ber remains
Trump observed several dignified transfers at Dover in his first term and has said it was “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.
There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, keeping all thoughts to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the politicians and other dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.
Trump, wearing an overcoat against the chill and brisk wind, joined the other attendees in a salute that was held as each of the American flag-draped transfer cases was carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military cargo plane and loaded into a dark, unmarked van nearby.
He gazed straight ahead as each case passed in front of him, though he turned to look after the first one was placed inside the vehicle. The remains were taken to the on-base mortuary for processing before they are released to the families.
At the start of the transfer, Trump and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined several others from the military at the open rear of the cargo plane, where all but Trump bowed their heads. The president looked inside the plane. Trump then stood alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth when the group joined the official party.
Before Trump joined the others, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who flew up with Trump, dabbed her eyes with a tissue.
Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes
Howard's stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy. Howard's brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, was escorting him back to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.
Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.
The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the U.S. in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.
Sakat's family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.
Trump's reaction to the attack in Syria
Trump has vowed retaliation, and the Pentagon's chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, has said the attack is under active investigation. The U.S. military said the gunman was killed in the attack.
Before this attack, the most recent instance of U.S. service members being killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.
Saturday's deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group.
Trump has forged a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad. The leaders met at the White House last month.
Trump said Monday that the attack had nothing to do with the Syrian leader, who Trump said was “devastated by what happened.”
During his first term, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.
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Superville reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.