Pentagon officials on Friday identified the soldier who allegedly killed 16 Afghan villagers as Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a trained Army sniper who had served three tours in Iraq and suffered war wounds.

Bales, a 38-year-old married father of two who enlisted in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was being flown Friday to a military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to await possible criminal charges, a U.S. official said.

Bales is accused of leaving his base in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, shooting 16 people in their homes and attempting to burn their bodies before returning to the base and turning himself in. He could face the death penalty, military officials have said.

The incident has sparked significant backlash in Afghanistan, straining already difficult relations with the United States over conduct of the war there.

The suspect’s name had been a closely guarded secret since he allegedly surrendered to authorities after the shootings on Sunday morning. Officials released the name to the media Friday evening.

Bales’s attorney, John Henry Browne, has said that Bales did not want to deploy to Afghanistan in December, experienced post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his deployments and suffered a head injury during a deployment in Iraq. Bales also had seen one of his fellow soldiers lose his leg in an explosion hours before he allegedly went on a rampage, Browne has told reporters.

Army Capt. Chris Alexander, 28, who was Bales’s platoon leader during a deployment in Iraq, said in an interview Friday night that he “saved many a life” by never letting his guard down during patrols.

“Bales is still, hands down, one of the best soldiers I ever worked with,” Alexander said. “There has to be very severe post-traumatic stress disorder involved in this. I just don’t want him seen as some psychopath, because he is not.”

Bales, a member of the 3rd (Stryker) Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, lived with his wife and young children in Lake Tapps, Wash., about a 20-minute drive east of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma. He attended high school in a Cleveland suburb but spent the past several years in Washington or on military deployments overseas.

His family was moved onto the base in recent days for its protection, officials have said.

The neighborhood where Bales lived includes many military families, according to neighbors. The family lived in a two-story beige house with a cedar-shake roof and a small front porch.

Government officials, in some news reports, have said Bales may have been drinking on the night of the shootings and was agitated by marital problems at home. Browne disputed that, saying the reports were “very offensive.” The couple had financial problems but nothing severe, he said, adding that they had “a very strong marriage.”

While living outside Tacoma, Bales had brushes with the law, according to court records and news accounts. In 2002, he was charged with misdemeanor criminal assault, according to the Tacoma News Tribune.