A US Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children has pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty in a deal that ends the largest and longest-running criminal case against US troops to emerge from the war.

A suicide bomber has killed eight people in an attack on Iraqi soldiers collecting their pay cheques at a bank in the western city of Haditha.

A car bomb tore through an open-air market west of Baghdad today, killing at least eight people, Iraqi police officials said.

At least five people were killed and 20 others wounded in a car bombing in a mainly Sunni area north-west of Baghdad today, police said.

A military jury acquitted a US Marine intelligence officer of charges that he tried to help cover up the killings of 24 Iraqis, including women and children.

The US Marine Corps has dropped charges and given full immunity to a serviceman who was accused of involuntary manslaughter in a squad’s killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha in 2005.

A US Marine will be court-martialed on reduced charges in the killings of 24 Iraqi men, women and children in the town of Haditha in 2005, the Marine Corps announced today.

A US Marine at the centre of the biggest prosecution of US troops in the Iraq war should be tried for the lesser offence of negligent homicide instead of murder, an investigating officer said.

Military prosecutors have granted immunity to at least seven US Marines who may be called to testify at the trial of fellow troops accused over the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha.

A US Marine Corps squad leader has been charged with murdering 12 people and ordering other Marines under his command to kill six people during an incident that left 24 civilians dead in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year.

A US Marine Corps squad leader was charged today with murdering 12 people and ordering other Marines under his command to kill six people during an incident that left 24 civilians dead in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year.

A US Marine Corps squad leader was charged today with 13 murder counts stemming from the killings of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year, his attorney said.

As many as eight US Marines could be charged in the biggest US criminal case to emerge from the war in Iraq in terms of Iraqis killed.

A US politician says about six Marines will be charged in the killing of 24 civilians in the Iraq town of Haditha.

Iraqi officials are doing DNA tests on a killed militant to determine if he is al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the deputy interior minister said today.

Iraqi witnesses today recounted how seven US Marines and a Navy corpsman kidnapped an Iraqi man from his home and shot him dead.

US MARINES being investigated over the killings of two dozen Iraqis last autumn in Haditha, most if not all of them civilians, appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence, the New York Times newspaper reported yesterday.

The US Marine Corps today planned to charge seven Marines and one sailor with murder in connection with the April death of an Iraqi civilian, a defence official said.

A SUSPECTED shoe bomber blew himself up inside one of Baghdad’s most important Shi’ite mosques during prayers yesterday, killing at least 13 people and wounding 28.

US Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, received and was reviewing the investigative report related to allegations that US Marines were involved in an alleged massacre and cover-up in Haditha last November, the military said today.

A US Marine who appeared in a video singing about killing Iraqis has apologised, saying he wrote the song as a "joke".

A music video posted to the internet, telling a tale about a US Marine killing members of an Iraqi family, is being condemned by an Islamic group and investigated by the Marine Corps.

America’s top US general in Iraq urged his troops to take extra care to ensure that unarmed Iraqis are not harmed amid allegations of the killing of civilians.

The BBC has uncovered video footage it says suggests US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians in March.

In the wake of the Haditha investigation, the top US general in Iraq today ordered American commanders to conduct core values training on moral and ethical standards on the battlefield.

INVESTIGATORS were yesterday reported to have found evidence in February and March that cast doubt on US Marines’ initial claims that Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha were the victims of a roadside bomb.

US President George Bush said today he was troubled by allegations that US Marines had killed unarmed Iraqi civilians and that “if in fact laws were broken, there will be punishment”.

TWO US marines were severely traumatised after following orders to photograph corpses of unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by members of their unit, their families said yesterday.

Two US Marines were severely traumatised after following orders to photograph corpses of unarmed Iraqi civilians allegedly killed by members of their unit, their families said today.

AMERICA’S top-ranking military commander said yesterday “it would be premature for me to judge” the outcome of a Pentagon investigation into the killing of as many as a dozen Iraqi civilians by marines.

The deaths of as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians and an ensuing cover-up threaten to do more harm to US efforts in Iraq than even the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, a prominent congressman and war critic says.

THE US military has launched an investigation into claims that American forces shot dead 15 members of two families, including a three year-old-girl, shortly after a roadside bomb killed a US marine in a western Iraqi town.

The US military has launched an investigation into claims that American forces shot dead 15 members of two families, including a three year-old-girl, shortly after a roadside bomb killed a US Marine in a western Iraqi town.

A roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 others on a foot patrol near Fallujah, the US military said. It was the deadliest attack against American troops in four months.

TEN US marines on foot patrol were killed and 11 wounded by a roadside bomb near Fallujah, Iraq, in one of the deadliest attacks on American troops in recent months.

AT least 60 people were massacred when three suicide attackers detonated car bombs almost simultaneously in a mainly Shi’ite town north of Baghdad last night.

A suicide car bomber struck worshippers leaving a Shiite mosque in Tuz Khormato in northern Iraq today, killing at least 10 people and wounding 21 others.

US forces along the Euphrates River attacked the insurgent stronghold of Haditha early yesterday, capturing a militant with ties to al-Qaida in Iraq and killing four others, the military said.

US marines and Iraqi troops pounded insurgents with bombs and tank cannons yesterday during a major offensive along a stretch of the Euphrates River valley where 22 marines were killed this week.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday rejected as “nonsense” the notion that recent terrorist attacks in London were retaliation for the US-led war in Iraq.

A US MARINE amphibious assault vehicle on patrol during combat operations near the Syrian border hit a roadside bomb yesterday, and 14 marines were killed in one of the deadliest single attacks in Iraq against US forces.

Fourteen US Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed early today in western Iraq, the US command said.

THE US military said yesterday that seven marines had been killed by insurgents in western Iraq, pushing the death toll for Americans since the start of the war past 1,800.

Six US Marines were killed in fighting in western Iraq, the US military said today.