Nuri al-Maliki:Firm stand

Baghdad, June 3 (Reuters): Iraq today vowed 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 US and compensation for the victims in several cases, including the alleged massacre in 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 was not fair for the Iraqi people and the children who were killed,” he said.

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 Qaida 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, 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 invasion.