WASHINGTON — The US soldier who allegedly shot and killed 16 civilians in Afghanistan was identified, and a picture emerged of a decorated veteran who saw tough battles and plenty of death in Iraq.

Several websites containing pictures and stories about Bales, including a 2009 Department of Defense page, were taken down by the time his identity was revealed Friday, but some versions of the webpages could still be accessed.

According to a cached online article, dated February 2009, from the official US army homepage, Bales participated in one of the bloodiest clashes of the Iraq war -- a January 2007 battle against a messianic Shiite sect in southern Iraq known as the Soldiers of Heaven.

In the 15-hour engagement, according to the US army article, 250 fighters were killed, all enemy -- and Bales said he was proud his unit "discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants and then afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us.

"I think that's the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy, someone who puts his family in harm's way like that," Bales said.

Separately, in a photograph appearing on cached webpage of the High Desert Warrior, an online military publication, dated March 4, Bales appears in camouflage fatigues and wearing body armor during a training exercise at an army training center in California's Mojave desert.