The US military launched a criminal investigation into whether US soldiers killed a family of four Iraqi civilians in their home south of Baghdad, officials said on Friday.
A preliminary military inquiry into the incident found sufficient reason to move to a formal criminal investigation, the military said in a statement released in Baghdad.
It is the latest in a series of investigations in which US troops are suspected in the killings of civilians. Army Major General James Thurman, the top US commander in the Baghdad area, asked the Army's Criminal Investigation Command to look into the incident in the area of Mahmudiyah, south of the capital, the military said.