The staff sergeant deployed on Dec. 3 with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord located south of Seattle, the source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The soldier's name has not been released. But the source said he was attached Feb. 1 to the village stability program in Belambai, half a mile from one of the villages where the attack took place. The soldier is now in pretrial confinement as Army officials review his complete deployment and medical history.
The village stability operations are part of NATO's efforts to transition out of Afghanistan. They pair special operations troops with local villagers chosen by village elders to become essentially a sanctioned, armed neighborhood watch.
The soldier had previously deployed to Iraq. This was his first deployment to Afghanistan, officials have told the AP.
The 3rd Stryker Brigade was the Army's first brigade to use the eight-wheeled, light infantry vehicle for which it is named, a vehicle developed in an effort to make the Army more nimble in a post-Cold War era.
The brigade deployed three times to Iraq before sending 2,500 soldiers to Afghanistan for the first time last December. For this most recent deployment, it left its 300 Stryker vehicles at home and, instead, has been using vehicles that were already in Afghanistan and are more resistant to roadside bombs.
The soldier is not from the same brigade as four service members based at Lewis-McChord who were convicted in the deliberate killing of three Afghan civilians during patrols in 2010. Those soldiers were from the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, which has since been renamed the 2nd Stryker brigade.
