The Military’s Guardian Angel Program: Explained

Cpl. Joseph Maciel’s death in southern Afghanistan on July 7 was not a result of a pitched firefight with insurgents or a car packed with explosives, but of an Afghan security force member who belonged to the very group Maciel was sent to fight alongside.

[‘Insider attack’ kills U.S. service member in Afghanistan]

The 20-year-old soldier from South Gate, Calif., is the 153rd member of the American-led coalition to die in a green-on-blue, or insider, attack. These types of attacks began in 2008 and hit a peak in 2012, with 44 incidents resulting in 15 percent of coalition deaths that year alone, according to The Long War Journal. They have since become a hallmark of the nearly 17-year war. Last year, four insider attacks targeted the American-led coalition, leaving three American soldiers dead in a single episode. To stem the killings, which became a pressing concern for both the White House and the Pentagon by the summer of 2012, the American military instituted the Guardian Angel program, in which select troops would train to protect their comrades and be prepared to kill supposed allies. The program enshrined one of the enduring tenets of the war in Afghanistan: The American-Afghan relationship, at some level, was encased in doubt and distrust.

Documents obtained by The New York Times detail parts of a course taught at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk, La., called “Guardian Angel and Insider Threat Training.” The material outlines the military’s approach to a threat that has persisted for a decade and uses two handbooks specifically written on the topic by both NATO and the American military as source material. The Army does not have one specific path to Guardian Angel certification. Soldiers are certified using different courses taught at various levels because of time and commitment constraints in units headed to Afghanistan. In Train Advise Assist Command, South — a command that spans most of southern Afghanistan — some personnel are only required to take a two-hour class. But for Maciel’s Army unit attached to the advisory brigade, known as the First Security Force Assistance Brigade, in Tarin Kowt, they most likely went through a five-day course, known as Advanced Situational Awareness, atop their regular infantry training. Other units can use a three-day model. Once certified, Guardian Angels support American trainers, who sometimes sit and talk with their Afghan counterparts through an interpreter, without a weapon or body armor. Guardian Angels position themselves in a corner, a part of the room where they can watch everyone, outfitted with a loaded weapon, a helmet and a bulletproof vest.

Maciel was assigned to the First Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, a unit providing Guardian Angel and security support to the First Security Force Assistance Brigade, which has been championed as an integral part of the Pentagon’s new strategy in Afghanistan. The 1,000-strong force is spread across the country in small teams that train the Afghan security forces down to the battalion level, something conventional American troops haven’t done since 2014. By working alongside Afghans in smaller units, the brigade is subsequently exposed to a higher potential of insider attacks. If attacks like the one on July 7 continue to happen, the Pentagon will undoubtedly have to re-examine this level of training for Afghan troops, experts say.

What happened in the attack at the small base in Tarin Kowt, a town in Uruzgan Province, is unclear. According to an American military officer with knowledge of the episode, a member of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces fired at Maciel, killing him and wounding three others, two American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. In the weeks leading up to the episode, the officer said, a small base outside Kandahar Airfield was warned of a potential insider attack; it’s unclear if the outpost in Tarin Kowt received a similar threat.