Wretchard has been busy extrapolating from reports on the Allied attack on what they describe as a terrorist safehouse along the Syrian-Iraqi border. Locals claim a wedding had been hit. The military has disclosed findings at the scene:

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy chief of staff for operations, showed slides of military binoculars, guns and battery packs that could be used to trigger roadside bombs found by U.S. troops at the site. He said "terrorist manuals," telephone numbers for Afghanistan and foreign passports, including one Sudanese, were also recovered there.

...Associated Press Television News footage taken at the site Thursday showed broken musical instruments, pieces of bloodied women's hair and the bodies of children. Kimmitt said no musical instruments were found, however.

..."There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," he said. "No gifts. The men were almost all of military age."

A Guardian story is Belmont Club's main source, leading to Wretchard's latest postulation that a raid was executed and civilian casualties occurred. For insight into that possibility, Wretchard offers an account from the April 9th attack on a convoy in Baghdad that led to Thomas Hamill's brief captivity. As in Fallujah, the enemy used civilian shields a month ago to frightening effect — and this may have been the case at the tiny border town.

In a report from the Defense Department, however, Kimmitt is quoted as further disputing accusations, including that of children among the dead. That directly contradicts one of the Guardian's witnesses, who claims that, after two of her three sons were cut down by an exploding shell while the four fled, she left her two dead sons where they lay — only after American soldiers "kicked [her]," soldiers who would have certainly viewed the bodies. And Kimmitt was adamant that a video distributed to the media did not depict a location consistent with the target site.

As Wretchard said, "a plethora of detail" in the accusation. But is it true?

MORE: Belmont Club has set the military's press release against the Guardian, catching one particular detail I'd missed. The targeted building, according to Kimmitt, was "somewhat of a dormitory," with "over 300 sets of bedding gear in it." Not only that but "a tremendous number of pre-packaged clothing" that Kimmitt explains was intended to help assimilate foreign fighters converging on this waypoint for terrorist work inside Iraq. Not your average reception hall.

EVEN MORE: You know, I thought initial claims were that celebratory firing into the air drew response from the Allies. Michael Moynihan found more flaws in the accusations.