Investigating Report Al Qaeda Killed U.S. Sailor

March 6 -- As the Pentagon sends more troops and helicopters into Afghanistan, officials are hoping to clear up conflicting reports of how a U.S. Navy SEAL died in some of the fiercest, deadliest fighting of the five-month war.

The Pentagon would not confirm a news report that said Petty Officer 1st class Neil Roberts, 32, of Woodland, Calif., died after he fell from a helicopter fleeing enemy fire in the Afghan mountains and was executed by al Qaeda fighters.

The Associated Press account, written by a reporter accompanying U.S. troops into battle, said U.S. military officials watched the incident on real-time surveillance pictures from an unmanned spy plane.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon today that they had not seen the surveillance tape and had received conflicting accounts of what led to the sailor's death.

"I have talked to three maybe four people who were either present or have reviewed the result of this and it would probably not surprise you that each of the three or four has a different view of what happened," Franks said.

What is officially known about Roberts' death, Rumsfeld said, is that the sailor was riding in a helicopter that took fire from the ground. At some point, Roberts fell out of the helicopter, but it is unclear, Rumsfeld said, whether he was shot before or after he fell to the ground.

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"At some point, people will merge all of those different perspectives and views and something will come out of it that will be fairly definitive," Rumsfeld said.

Earlier, The AP report had been confirmed to other journalists by Maj. Gen. Frank Hagenbeck in Afghanistan. "We saw him on the Predator [surveillance plane] being dragged off by three al Qaeda men," he said.

When the GI's body was recovered later, he was found to have died from bullet wounds, in what appeared to have been an execution, military officials said.