The U.S. soldier killed in an insider attack in Afghanistan on Saturday was deployed in support of a new U.S. Army adviser dispatched as part of the Trump administration’s strategy for the war, U.S. military officials said.
Cpl. Joseph Maciel was deployed with the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade and attacked by an Afghan soldier at Tarin Kowt airfield in Uruzgan province, said Army Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, a military spokesman in Kabul. The brigade’s soldiers were deployed early this year to provide training and advising to Afghan soldiers and police, and are distributed across the country.
Maciel was a member of the Army 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, according to a statement from U.S. military headquarters in Kabul. He deployed in February to provide security for the brigade’s military advisers, and was from South Gate, Calif. Maciel’s death marks the first for a soldier deployed with the adviser brigade.
Two other U.S. soldiers were wounded in the attack, O’Donnell said.