Official: Shooting suspect suffered brain injury

Afghanistan shooting survivors speak

Afghans railed at American forces Monday as investigators combed through two villages where a U.S. Army sergeant is accused of having gone on a weekend rampage, killing 16 civilians.

An official who spoke on the condition of anonymity also revealed more about the suspect, saying he had once been diagnosed with a brain injury but had later been found fit for duty.

Men wept openly as they showed the bodies of their neighbors -- and some of their neighbors' children -- on Monday. In one truck, a toddler with a bloodstained face lay between the bodies of two men, while another held the charred remains of two more people.

"One guy came in and pulled a boy from his sleep and he shot him in this doorway. Then they came back inside the room and put a gun in the mouth of one child and stomped on another child," one woman said.

"This base told us to come back to our villages," another woman shouted. "They said, 'We won't bother you, this is your land and this is your own village.' Then those dogs come and grab us?"

Some of the villagers said more than one soldier appeared to have been involved in the killings. But Gen. John Allen, the commander of NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said investigators believe the suspect, a veteran of three previous tours of duty in Iraq, "acted as an individual."

The dead included four men, three women and nine children, Afghan officials reported.

The suspect was based at a combat outpost near the villages. His motive remained unknown Monday. He invoked his right to remain silent after turning himself in to his comrades early Sunday, according to a senior Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the suspect was an infantry sniper from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, outside Tacoma, Washington. He was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury in 2010, after a vehicle rollover in Iraq, but found fit for duty after treatment, the official said.

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Official: Shooting suspect suffered brain injury