SOLDIER WAS HOLDING AMMO, AUTOPSY SHOWS.

Byline: Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Sgt. First Class Donald A. Dugan, the first fatality of America's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, may have died because he picked up a piece of ammunition that exploded in his hands, military spokesmen said Monday.

Dugan, 38, of Belle Center, Ohio, was standing about 25 yards off the road north of Tuzla when he was killed Saturday afternoon. First reports said Dugan had been killed by a land mine, but the U.S. Army withdrew that explanation late Sunday night.

Monday, Army officials said an autopsy performed at a base in Germany showed the cause of death to be "extensive head injuries." An Army spokesman in Washington said Dugan's hands had been blown off. And the Associated Press, quoting an unnamed NATO spokesman, said Dugan "apparently" died when some ammunition he had picked up exploded.

There was not "any indication of any hostile action against" Dugan by any of Bosnia's warring factions, the Army said in its Sunday news release. "As lessons are learned from the incident," it added, "they will be incorporated into our procedures."

U.S. military leaders in Bosnia have stressed caution and safety as nearly 20,000 American troops are deployed on a yearlong NATO mission to enforce the peace accord signed by Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian leaders in December.

American troops are not allowed to travel in Bosnia except in heavily armed groups, and spend most of their time at bases, bunkers or posts fortified with sandbags and guarded by tanks.

Arriving U.S. soldiers have all received extensive safety training, which warns them, among other things, about the dangers of minefields and the dangers of picking up anything from the ground.

"The golden rule is if you didn't drop it, don't pick it up," said a NATO spokesman in Tuzla. And "if it's not paved, don't step off it," added a U.S. Army spokesman.

Late last month, three NATO soldiers - two Portuguese and one Italian - were killed in Sarajevo when one of them brought a fragmentation bomb into their tent and it exploded. Six NATO soldiers were wounded in the incident.

Dugan, in the armed forces for 18 years, was on assignment in Bosnia to help monitor and patrol the "zones of separation" that now stand between Bosnia's armies.

Army Maj. Lou Giampiccolo of the press office here ruled out the possibility that Dugan had committed suicide or that he had been the victim of a "fragging" - death at the hands of a fellow soldier.