U.S.: Taliban Beheading Led to Air Strikes

Amid U.S. regret over civilian deaths in Afghanistan, the commander of U.S. forces there voiced doubts Wednesday about whether American bombing was to blame."We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties," Gen. David McKiernan said.Speaking to reporters at Camp Eggers in Kabul, McKiernan said Taliban extremists beheaded three villagers over the weekend in the start of what he described as an extended battle that ended with U.S. airstrikes killing at least 25 Taliban militants.McKiernan noted the claims of local officials that civilians were also killed.He said a joint U.S.-Afghan investigation of the incident, which began Wednesday, would probably take a few more days."We do have people out there on the ground who will continue to follow this up with our Afghanistan counterparts to get to the truth," McKiernan said. He added: "It is certainly a technique of the Taliban and other insurgent groups to claim civilian casualties at every event, so we've just got to do the right investigation on this."