A U.S. military investigation into a March 15 raid on a house in the Iraqi town of Ishaqi in which civilians were killed cleared the U.S. forces, the military said in a statement on Friday.

"Allegations that the troops executed a family living in this safe house, and then hid the alleged crimes by directing an air strike, are absolutely false," said U.S. military spokesman William Caldwell in a statement from the Iraqi capital.

Officers conducted a "thorough" investigation and "ascertained that the ground force commander had properly followed the rules of engagement as he necessarily escalated the use of force until the threat was eliminated," he said.

"All loss of innocent life is tragic and unfortunate, and we regret such occurrences," said the spokesman.

He said the U.S. forces in the raid had captured Kuwaiti-born Ahmad Abdallah Muhammad Nais al-Utaybi, an al-Qaida cell leader, and killed Uday Faris al-Tawafi, an Iraqi involved in making improvised bombs and recruiting insurgents.

He also said the investigation had "concluded that up to nine collateral deaths resulted from this engagement but it could not determine the precise number due to collapsed walls and heavy debris."

However, a local Iraqi police official told CNN that U.S. troops had kept an entire family in a room before shooting them, and then blowing up the house.

Other Iraqi policemen said in the incident, 11 civilians had been killed, including five children -- the youngest only 6 months old --, four women, and two men.

All the dead had been shot in the head with their hands bound, they said.

After receiving a videotape from the BBC which showed the bodies of those killed in the incident, the Pentagon launched the investigation.

The March 15 incident was just one of a handful involving Iraqi civilian deaths being investigated by Pentagon.

Earlier in the day, the U.S. military in Baghdad had said there were at least three or four other investigations underway into the deaths of civilians at the hands of U.S. troops and its allies, but gave no details.

In the wake of recent allegations of war atrocities, the U.S. military said its troops in Iraq were going to have "ethical training," a move greeted with cynicism among Iraqis, who have long accused the U.S. troops of targeting civilians.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said earlier that he was losing patience with reports of U.S. troops killing Iraqi civilians.

Source: Xinhua