The official said a joint investigation by senior Afghan and U.S. military officials had convinced them that there was no intent to desecrate the Qurans and other religious texts.
The Quran incident started almost two weeks ago, when the books and other Islamic texts that U.S. military officials said had extremist inscriptions were removed from the library at the Parwan Detention Facility and then taken to the burn pit at the adjoining Bagram Air Field.
A NATO military official said last week that it appeared detainees were exchanging messages by making notations in the texts. The Western official confirmed reports that after the writings were discovered, two Afghan-American interpreters were assigned to go through the materials at the library and that 1,652 items were removed.
The items, which included the Qurans, were placed in boxes and the Western official confirmed that a decision was taken to dispose of them because of a lack of storage space and because of the notes scribbled in them.
At some point a group of soldiers on a work detail came and removed the books to throw them away. The Western official told The Associated Press on Saturday the three soldiers on the garbage detail had no idea what they were carrying to the burn pit.
The Afghan workers then realized what was being burned and tried to extinguish the flames, some burned their fingers trying to salvage the books. Afghan government officials said initial reports indicated four Quran texts were burned.