NEW YORK — NBC news anchor Brian Williams has publicly dropped his claim that he was personally beheaded by al Qaeda in Iraq, saying he had misremembered the event.

Williams — known as 'The Most Trusted NBC Nightly News Anchor in America' — has admitted he "was never captured by al Qaeda in Iraq in May 2004, nor murdered by AQI leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi" in a notorious propaganda video.

Though Williams had been making the claim for more than a decade, it had not received any scrutiny until a recent comment he made on the execution of Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh.

During an evening broadcast last week, Williams said, "I can image what [Kaseasbeh] went through, because I remember when I had my head sawn off in Fallujah by al Qaeda [in Iraq], and how horrible that was."