WASHINGTON — A team of U.S. and Afghan investigators arrived Wednesday at the site of an alleged friendly fire accident in Oruzgan Province of Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a 15-ton cache of munitions, including anti-aircraft weapons, has been found about 10 miles from the July 1 strikes, and an unknown number of detainees were taken in connection with that day's activities.
   U.S. Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, operations director for the Joint Staff, told Pentagon reporters Wednesday that the investigation team arrived at the site four hours earlier in the day, but that he has heard nothing of their findings yet. Reports that the team had arrived yesterday were premature.
   "They've just begun their inquiry," Newbold said. "So it'll take some time for them to develop richness of detail to know precisely what happened."
   He said U.S. military medical teams had been in the area offering assistance at local hospitals, but that Afghan medical assets had everything under control.
   Newbold did not confirm media reports that 40 civilians had been killed in an errant bomb strike on an Afghan wedding in the province July 1, but he acknowledged at least 21 civilians are in hospitals in Kandahar and Bagram. The general had no information on the individuals' conditions, but he said none had life-threatening injuries.
   U.S. officials have said coalition forces were operating in Oruzgan July 1 looking for suspected Taliban members believed to be hiding in the area. The region is mainly Pashtun, the single largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and the one from which most of the Taliban came.
   Officials said July 2 that U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers and AC-130 gunships had struck several ground targets the previous day, including anti-aircraft artillery sites that were engaging the aircraft over Oruzgan Province.
   U.S. forces had been operating in the area for a few weeks and had been fired upon on several different occasions. The night of the incident, defense officials said, pilots flying missions in the area believed they were being tracked and engaged by anti-aircraft artillery.
   Newbold said there had been sporadic ground engagements in that area over several weeks, and that "virtually any time an aircraft was flown over there, it had fire directed at it." More

   U.S. troops will continue performing United Nations peacekeeping missions in Bosnia despite senior Defense Department officials' concerns about the lack of legal protections for American troops under the recently established International Criminal Court.
   Established July 1, the ICC was formed to prosecute war criminals and dictators alleged to have committed genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some 138 countries signed on to create the organization, which is to be based in The Hague, the Netherlands.
   However, the U.S. government won't ratify or join the ICC, senior Defense Department officials said at a Pentagon briefing. They cited misgivings that the ICC doesn't contain sufficient legal protections for American service members, while implying its reach could also be improperly employed as a political weapon against America. The ICC currently has 74 member-countries. Story  Briefing