A girl whose family was attacked in Iraq, allegedly by US Marines, said in a video that she saved herself by hiding among the bodies of slain family members.
Safa Younis is one of few survivors from an attack on Nov. 19 in the western city of Haditha that left 24 unarmed civilians dead.
In the brief video clip recorded in late November by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, Safa, dressed in a blue coat and a black-and-white patterned head scarf, recalled the death of her father, mother, four sisters and brother.
"The Americans knocked at the door," she said on the video released this week by the human-rights group, which is not well-known outside of Iraq.
"My father went to open it. They shot him dead from behind the door, and then they shot him again after they opened the door," she said.
Safa said one attacker shot at other family members. She said she hid in a bedroom by the bodies of her mother and siblings.
"I pretended to be dead," she said.
The girl's age was given as 12 by networks playing the video on Wednesday, but earlier reports said she was 15.
It was not possible to contact the girl independently to verify her comments on the video.
US officials said the details of what happened in Haditha were murky and investigations were under way. What is known is that a bomb rocked a military convoy and left one Marine dead. Residents of Haditha claim that the Marines then went into nearby houses and shot members of two families.
The US military said it was investigating whether the killings were criminal acts and whether there was a coverup.
US President George W. Bush promised on Wednesday that any US Marines involved in the alleged murders of Iraqi civilians would be punished.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government decided yesterday that it would launch its own probe into the incident, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.
The decision was made during a Cabinet meeting and the probe will be carried out by a special committee made up of the Justice and Human Rights ministries along with security officials, Adnan al-Kazimi said.
Al-Kazimi said the committee would also investigate other cases in which misconduct by US troops was suspected.
``A mechanism must be in place that governs the response of US and Iraqi troops to attacks,'' al-Kazimi said, apparently referring to persistent allegations that US forces open fire at random.
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