An explosive allegation

last updated 8 January 2015

Baghdad

The U.S. military said it has opened a criminal investigation into allegations that Marines executed 15 civilians in Iraq last November. According to eyewitnesses quoted by Time, the Marines were retaliating after a member of their unit was killed by a roadside bomb. They allegedly burst into two houses near the scene of the explosion and shot dead 15 family members, including seven women and three children. “I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head,” one surviving child was quoted as saying. “Then they killed my granny.” The military initially said the 15 civilians were killed by the roadside bomb. But after Time turned up a videotape of the bodies riddled with bullets, the military said the civilians apparently were “collateral damage.”