As American and Afghan investigators investigate accounts of the killing of at least 40 civilians by US warplanes, officials are again claiming senior Taliban leaders had been sheltering in the village.
A US special forces team had surveyed the area at least four times in the past two weeks, and each time planes had been fired on by anti-aircraft guns, US Major Gary Tallman of the investigating team said. But locals have said there was no military presence in the village.
American forces on the ground had reliable information from several sources that senior Taliban leaders sheltered in the tiny village where the wedding party was attacked, Maj Tallman told US forces magazine Stars and Stripes.
On Sunday night, US troops were positioning to surround and search the village when they saw more anti-aircraft fire, Gen Tallman said, adding he had spoken to the senior special forces officer who had planned the operation.
The commander told Gen Tallman that spotters on the ground with laser targeting devices had directed AC-130 gunships to attack the anti-aircraft sites, which the commander said were often placed near homes to discourage attacks.
Afghan officials and locals maintain the villagers were merely firing in the air to celebrate the wedding of the son and daughter of two tribal elders, with 500 guests assembled for a five-day party.
Survivors told of the carnage as their party was shattered by at least two gunships. One woman described it as "like an abattoir", while another said bodies were "flying like straws".
Information from the US military has trickled out slowly and has appeared contradictory at times.
At Bagram air base, staging post for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan, US army spokesman Colonel Roger King said he understood the village was not a pre-planned target, and had no information on anyone who might have been there.
He has previously said a ground patrol called in air support after feeling threatened by automatic weapons fire, and that the firing on the AC-130 gunships was sustained and hostile, and not consistent with a wedding party. He said investigators had found weapons mounted on cars that could have been the source of the anti-aircraft fire, and shell casings too large to have been from small arms.
He added Afghans were talking of 40 to 44 dead and about 130 wounded "but we haven't seen anything that would verify that".
In Washington, the Pentagon said on Wednesday that investigators had seen blood during its two hour visit to the village, but had not seen graves or bodies. But Muslims bury their dead as soon as possible.
Stars and Stripessaid villagers had offered to show the team to the "garden" where the bodies had been buried, although they had explained the team would have to drive there.