HIGHLIGHTS: U.S. Investigators Take Reporters & Government Representatives to the Bombing Site||U.S. Officials Claim Falling Anti-Aircraft Artillery Could Have Caused Civilian Casualties||Incident Underlines Dangers Inherent in U.S.-Led Mission in Afghanistan|| STORY: It appears an errant bomb dropped by the United States was not responsible for scores of deaths reported in a central Afghan village, U.S. defense officials said in Washington Tuesday. (Read photo caption)

That bomb, from an Air Force B-52, is believed to have fallen in a remote or uninhabited area, officials said on condition of anonymity. They stressed, however, that the investigation is still under way.

Residents and officials said dozens of civilians, including women and children, were killed in an attack early Monday in the village of Kakarak, about 175 miles southwest of the capital of Kabul. Afghan estimates of those killed ranged from about 40 to more than 100.

U.S. military officials had said Monday that any of three things could have caused the civilian casualties: the bomb from the B-52, a raid by a U.S. AC-130 plane on anti-aircraft sites or anti-aircraft fire falling back to the ground.

U.S. investigators Tuesday were taking reporters and Afghan government representatives to the site of the accident.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis said Monday that the B-52 bomber attacked a cave complex in the same general area of the village in Uruzgan province. It dropped seven precision-guided, 2,000-pound bombs and one went astray.

But two Pentagon officials Tuesday said they did not believe that was the cause.

At about the same time as that mission a separate reconnaissance operation involving an undisclosed number of regular and special U.S. forces was under way in the same vicinity.

An American forward air controller on the ground reported fire from anti-aircraft artillery sites and called in the AC-130 gunship to counterattack, Davis said.

Some of the anti-aircraft artillery could have fallen back to the ground and caused casualties, Davis said.

Survivors say the planes attacked a wedding, perhaps mistakenly thinking celebratory fire from the party was mistaken for anti-aircraft fire.

It was not clear how close the anti-aircraft sites were to the caves and bunkers being bombed.

Whatever the explanation, the matter is a reminder that the mission in Afghanistan is dangerous, not only for American and allied forces searching for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters but also for Afghan civilians. If the attack turns out to have been a deadly error by U.S. forces, it would not be the first time that human or mechanical error led to unintended deaths and injuries there.

Just last week, U.S. Central Command said it had determined that two Air National Guard F-16 pilots were primarily to blame for the mistaken bombing in April of Canadian forces in southern Afghanistan. One pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb that killed four Canadian soldiers and injured others.

On May 31, U.S. troops mistakenly killed three of their Afghan allies in a firefight that broke out when both sides moved separately into a compound mistakenly thought to be a hide-out of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

About 7,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan. They have conducted little aerial bombing in recent months and have engaged in little direct ground combat since March.

Much of their work is going out on patrols looking for the enemy, watching sites al-Qaida and Taliban may use to hide, finding weapons caches and so on.

PHOTO CAPTION

Army Colonel Roger King speaks during a news conference at Bagram airbase, north of Afghan capital, Kabul, July 2, 2002. Afghan and U.S. officials headed to an Afghan village on Tuesday to investigate reports that a stray U.S. bomb killed 40 members of a wedding party during a major operation to track down Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. REUTERS/Beawiharta