Iraq vowed today to press on with its own probe into the deaths of civilians in a US raid on the town of Ishaqi, rejecting the US military's exoneration of its forces.
Adnan al-Kazimi, an aide to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the government would also demand an apology from the United States and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged massacre in the town of Haditha last year.
"We have from more than one source that the Ishaqi killings were carried out under questionable circumstances. More than one child was killed. This report was not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed," he told Reuters.
The US military had issued a statement about Ishaqi saying allegations that US troops "executed a family ... and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false".
It said troops had been fired on as they raided a house to arrest an al-Qaeda suspect. They returned fire and called in air support, which destroyed the building, killing one militant and resulting in "up to nine collateral deaths".
The military had previously said one guerrilla, two women and a child were killed in the March 15 raid in Ishaqi, 60 miles (100 km) north of Baghdad.
It has repeatedly pledged to punish any soldier found guilty of atrocities in Iraq, but the decision to clear the troops in Ishaqi fuelled deep mistrust among ordinary Iraqis three years after the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
Police in Ishaqi say five children, four women and two men were shot in the head, and that the bodies, with hands bound, were dumped in one room before the house was blown up.