WASHINGTON • A senior U.S. official says the soldier accused in the killing of 16 Afghan civilians is Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into an incident that has roiled relations with Afghanistan.

American officials had previously said the suspect was a 38-year-old staff sergeant and that he had spent 11 years in the Army. But they had refused to release his name, saying it is military policy to publicly name a suspect only after he has been charged with an offense.

Bales has not yet been charged.

Earlier, warning he's at the "end of the rope" over civilian casualties, Afghanistan's president angrily accused the U.S. of not sharing information about how the American soldier allegedly shot and killed 16 Afghans in two villages.

The incident has reverberated through the already complicated relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan, endangering talks over a long-term relationship after most U.S. and NATO combat troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

In an emotional meeting with relatives of the shooting victims, Karzai said the villagers' accounts of the massacre were widely different from the scenario depicted by U.S. military officials. The relatives and villagers insisted that it was impossible for one gunmen to kill nine children, four men and three women in three houses of two villages near a U.S. combat outpost in southern Afghanistan.

Karzai pointed to one of the villagers from Panjwai district of Kandahar province and said:

"In his family, in four rooms people were killed — children and women were killed — and then they were all brought together in one room and then set on fire. That, one man cannot do."

Karzai said the delegation he sent to Kandahar province to investigate the shootings did not receive the expected cooperation from the United States. He said many questions remained about what occurred, and he would be raising the questions with the U.S. military "very loudly."

The U.S. military had no comment on Karzai's remarks.

Karzai said his demand for a withdrawal from villages was a topic of a phone call he received Friday morning from President Barack Obama.

"Yesterday, I said clearly that the Americans should leave our villages," Karzai said. "This morning, Obama called regarding this issue. He asked, 'Did you announce this?' I said, "Yes, I announced it.'"

Karzai's office and the White House issued statements recounting the phone call.

Both said the two leaders discussed Karzai's longstanding concerns about night raids and house searches and they agreed to finish negotiations on a memorandum of understanding to resolve the issues. They agreed to further discuss Karzai's concern about the presence of foreign troops in Afghan villages, both statements said.

Bales, the shooting suspect, was being taken Friday to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military's only maximum-security prison.

Officials say that transfer was necessary because there was no appropriate detention facility to hold him in Afghanistan.

The passage through Kuwait angered conservatives in the Gulf Arab nation, where the U.S. military has thousands of troops stationed. Kuwait has become an increasingly important strategic location for U.S. forces in the region after the American withdrawal from Iraq.

Islamist lawmaker Waleed Tabtabaei was quoted by the Kuwait newspaper Al-Rai saying the stopover was unacceptable and the U.S. should "stop treating Kuwait like its backyard." In an apparent nod to such sentiments, the Kuwait military statement underlined that the suspect was not questioned while on Kuwaiti soil.

Dealing another blow to the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, the Taliban on Thursday said they were calling off talks with the Americans, charging that the U.S. had failed to follow through on its promises and had made new demands. The militant group also said the U.S. falsely claimed that it had entered into multilateral negotiations that included the Afghan government.

Karzai said Friday that the Taliban should be talking directly with his government.

The moves represent new setbacks to America's strategy for ending the 10-year-old war at a time when support at home for the conflict is plummeting.

Part of the U.S. exit strategy is to transfer authority gradually to Afghan forces. Another tack is to pull the Taliban and other militant factions into political discussions with the Afghan government, though it's unclear whether there has been any progress since January.

Prospective peace talks have not gained traction, according to longtime Afghan warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister who has been branded a terrorist by Washington. U.S. and Afghan officials have had talks with representatives of Hekmatyar.

"As far as I know, there haven't been any hopeful negotiations between the United States and their opposition, or the Afghan government with the mujahedeen or the Taliban," Hekmatyar told 1TV, a private Afghan television station, in an interview broadcast on Thursday.

U.S. discussions with Hekmatyar have been described as nascent and exploratory. Still, in addition to getting the blessing of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar — a bitter rival of Hekmatyar even though both are fighting international troops — any peace deal would likely have to be supported by Hekmatyar, who has thousands of fighters and followers primarily in the north and east. —

Soldier may have post-traumatic stress, experts say

They are questions already being debated: Did Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the soldier suspected of killing Afghan villagers, have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD? And did the people who sent him back to war after he was injured properly determine he was mentally fit to return?

It's way too soon to psychologically dissect the state of mind of the 38-year-old longtime soldier. However, several mental health experts said PTSD is a reasonable thing to consider.

Bales' lawyer said his client had seen a fellow soldier's leg blown off a day before the killings Sunday, and had suffered a head injury and lost part of a foot during three earlier deployments to Iraq. The soldier left for Afghanistan in December.

"This kind of a person would fit the profile for someone who might well have PTSD," said Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who heads the PTSD Research Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital.

He has no knowledge of the case and spoke hypothetically, but said that if the soldier had recently witnessed a major injury to a comrade, it could have been an important trigger.

"A psychologically traumatic event in which a person feels intensively helpless or terrified may result in a post-traumatic disorder," Pitman said. "We've known ever since the Vietnam War that the unfortunate phenomenon of abusive violence often closely follows the injury or death of a buddy in combat. The injury or death of a buddy creates a kind of a blind rage."

On Friday, a senior U.S. defense official said that investigators have determined that the suspect had been drinking alcohol before he left the base the night of the killings. How much of a role alcohol may have played in the attack that killed 16 people is still under investigation, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because charges had not yet been filed.

The Associated Press Experts: Soldier might have post-traumatic stress

They are questions already being debated: Did the soldier suspected of killing Afghan villagers have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD? And did the people who sent him back to war after he was injured properly determine he was mentally fit to return?

It's way too soon to psychologically dissect the state of mind of the 38-year-old longtime soldier accused in the killings. However, several mental health experts said PTSD is a reasonable thing to consider.

The soldier's lawyer said his client had seen a fellow soldier's leg blown off a day before the killings last weekend, and had suffered a head injury and lost part of a foot during three earlier deployments to Iraq. The soldier left for Afghanistan in December.

"This kind of a person would fit the profile for someone who might well have PTSD," said Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who heads the PTSD Research Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital.

He has no knowledge of the case and spoke hypothetically, but said that if the soldier had recently witnessed a major injury to a comrade, it could have been an important trigger.

"A psychologically traumatic event in which a person feels intensively helpless or terrified may result in a post-traumatic disorder," Pitman said. "We've known ever since the Vietnam war that the unfortunate phenomenon of abusive violence often closely follows the injury or death of a buddy in combat. The injury or death of a buddy creates a kind of a blind rage."

On Friday, a senior U.S. defense official said that investigators have determined that the suspect had been drinking alcohol before he left the base the night of the killings. How much of a role alcohol may have played in the attack that killed 16 people is still under investigation, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because charges had not yet been filed.