The Salvador Option is an approach to counter-insurgency warfare that was utilised by the United States Department of Defense during the Salvadoran Civil War. The term was later used in the context of counter insurgency operations coordinated by Colonel James Steele, a retired special forces veteran who was nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise Shi'ite paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency during the Iraq War. From 1984 to 1986 Steele operated as a counterinsurgency specialist and was head of the United States Military Group of US special forces advisers to frontline battalions of the Salvadorean military (which developed a reputation for its death squad activities).