WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Janet Reno ordered U.S. marshals to seize from FBI headquarters new evidence about the events that led up to the deadly fire that ended a 1993 assault on a cult compound near Waco, Texas, published reports said on Thursday. The reported seizures by the U.S. Marshals Service occurred as Justice Department officials said on Wednesday Reno would like an outside investigator to look into the use by FBI agents of flammable tear gas canisters at the Branch Davidian sect‘s compound. Quoting Justice Department officials, the New York Times reported on Thursday that Reno ordered the marshals to seize evidence including a previously undisclosed tape recording of voice communications between FBI commanders and field agents during the tear-gas assault. The Times quoted the officials as saying the recording contains the voices of agents requesting and receiving authorisation from their operational commanders at Waco to fire the flammable military tear-gas rounds at a covered bunker close to the cult‘s main compound several hours before the deadly fire was ignited. The Washington Post quoted an unnamed FBI official as saying the voices can be heard on a videotape shot from a surveillance aircraft. searching for an outsider to lead the investigation into the FBI‘s admission last week that its agents fired the devices into the complex hours before it became engulfed in flames, killing about 80 members of the religious sect and cult leader David Koresh. The White House also supports an independent investigation, an administration official said on Wednesday, adding that details of how to proceed with the case would be made „shortly.“ Controversy over Waco — one of the murkiest tragedies in recent American history and a cause celebre of conspiracy theorists — was reignited last week when the Dallas Morning News uncovered evidence from a Texas lawsuit that FBI agents had used incendiary devices at the compound. This had been denied for six years.