Eight U.S. Embassy guards stationed in Kabul were fired Friday and two others resigned after a watchdog group released photographs and videos this week that showed the guards engaged in lewd conduct and other inappropriate behavior that put the lives of diplomats at the compound at risk.

The guards, who worked for ArmorGroup North America, a firm contracted by the State Department to protect diplomats and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, all appeared in photographs in various stages of undress and participating in bizarre hazing activities, including urinating on each other and drinking alcohol from the bare buttocks of new recruits.

They left Afghanistan Friday.

ArmorGroup, a unit of Wackenhut Services, Inc., has a $189 million government contract and employs 450 guards–mostly Nepalese Ghurkas –to provide security at the embassy.

“Ten guards seen in the offensive photos are leaving the country today; eight were terminated and two resigned,” the embassy said in a statement on Friday.”The entire senior management team of ArmorGroup North America in Kabul is being replaced immediately. The embassy security office continues its interviews of every one of the ArmorGroup guards.”

State Department investigators have also been dispatched to Kabul to probe the matter.

The government watchdog group Project On Government Oversight (POGO) obtained the photographs as well as e-mails, videos and other documents from whistleblowers working ArmorGroup detailing the abuses. The whistleblowers said the behavior was carried out during a time when the Taliban and al-Qaeda were moving against U.S. targets.

POGO said the guards live and work in a “Lord of Flies” environment, referring to the 1954 novel about British adolescents stranded on an island. The photographs can be accessed here.

According to a letter POGO sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday:

POGO initiated an investigation after nearly one-tenth of the U.S./ex-pat 6 guards individually contacted us to express concerns about and provide evidence of a pattern of blatant, longstanding violations of the security contract, and of a pervasive breakdown in the chain of command and guard force discipline and morale. This environment has resulted in chronic turnover by U.S./ex-pat guards. According to the State Department, “nearly 90% of the incumbent US/Expats left within the first six months of contract performance.”7 According to POGO sources, the U.S./ex-pat guard turnover may be as high as 100 percent annually. This untenable turnover prevents the guard force from developing team cohesion, and requires constant training for new replacement recruits. The guards have come to POGO because they say they believe strongly in the mission, but are concerned that many good guards are quitting out of frustration or being fired for refusing to participate in the misconduct, and that those responsible for the misconduct are not being held accountable…

Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically. Others have reported that AGNA management has begun to conduct a witch hunt to identify employees who have provided information about this atmosphere to POGO.

According to POGO, supervisors allegedly brought prostitutes into their living quarters, a security and discipline violation. In another case, ArmorGroup guards coerced Afghans into taking part in hazing activities prohibited by Muslims, such as drinking alcohol. The embassy said Friday guards have been banned from drinking alcoholic beverages while they are in Afghanistan.

Danielle Brian, POGO’s executive director, said in a statement Friday, that while the group was ” pleased that the State Department has finally taken decisive steps to bring the Kabul security guard scandal under control,” the organization remains “very concerned..with certain elements of this action.”

“POGO has no solid information of the identities of those reported to have been removed,” Brian said. “We have been told people are being fired for simply being in the photographs. We do know a number of those were unwilling participants. We also want to hear that the supervisors who were responsible for this debacle are being held fully accountable and not simply allowed to resign and go to another contractor.”

In an interview on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Brian said ArmorGroup’s contract was the subject of an investigation by the State Department and the Senate in 2007. The State Department reprimanded the firm for inappropriate behavior and renewed its security contract in July 2008.

“I’ve got emails today from a guard who’s still there,” Brian stated, “showing that in 2007 he was raising concerns about some of these supervisors who were over in training in the U.S., and he was saying … ‘These guys are weird. They are doing weird, deviant hazing. We need to do something about it.’”

He added that he obtained a copy of an e-mail in which ArmorGroup told its embassy guards “they are not allowed to speak to a State Department investigator without a supervisor being there with them.”

“So I don’t have a lot of faith that the State Department’s going to be able to dig up much on their own,” Brian said. “The good guys are still the ones who are really in danger and are taking the fall. The bad guys are not yet being held accountable.”

As The Public Record reported Thursday, a whistleblower who disclosed to the group the deviant behavior carried out by U.S. Embassy guards stationed in Kabul was forced to resign from the security firm that employed him and the guards he exposed.

According to POGO, ArmorGroup North America, “came to believe that [the whistleblower] had reached out to D.C. for assistance. The company told POGO that the whistleblower’s resignation was voluntary.”

But “information obtained by [POGO] strongly suggests he was pressured into resigning to avoid being fired, an action often referred to as constructive dismissal,” the watchdog group said in a news release.

“POGO is deeply concerned about the action allegedly taken against the whistleblower. He is being forced out at a time when three of the supervisors responsible for allowing the misconduct at Camp Sullivan have been allowed to quietly resign and escape accountability.

The group called on the State Department to “take immediate action to protect both the physical and employment security of whistleblowers who have stepped forward with allegations of serious misconduct involving ArmorGroup, North America and others.”

In response to POGO’s revelations, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday, “there were some things going on in Kabul which we were not aware of, but frankly, we should have been aware of.”

“I’d like to stress, though, that all along, any problems that we did discover throughout this contract, we did promptly raise with the contractor, and they were immediately addressed,” Kelly told reporters. “And you saw some of these deficiencies, of course, in the report of the – of POGO regarding some of the communications we’ve had with the contractor.”

Kelly added that the State Department has already “documented a number of management concerns through our ongoing oversight of this particular contract” and “a senior team from Diplomatic Security and our Bureau of Management, some contracting officials, will be going to Kabul in the coming days to investigate.”

However, neither Kelly nor anyone else at the State Department responded Thursday to the allegations that ArmorGroup forced the whistleblower to resign.

The Public Record reported Wednesday that Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight, called on the State Department to launch a probe into the performance and management of the ArmorGroup contract.

She sent a letter Monday to Patrick Kennedy, the undersecretary of state for management, demanding documents related to ArmorGroup’s contract and any previous State Department reviews that may exist alleging previous misconduct by the firm’s guards.