The U.S. military is conducting an investigation into claims, first made public in a Time magazine article in March, that the furious marines of Kilo Company killed unarmed Iraqis in a taxi and two nearby homes in retaliation for the loss of their comrade.

Bush said he had discussed the incident with Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"He's a proud marine. And nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is full of honourable people who understand the rules of war," Bush said.

"If in fact these allegations are true, the Marine Corps will work hard to make sure that that culture - that proud culture - will be reinforced. And that those who violated the law, if they did, will be punished."

Bush said he was troubled by the initial news stories.

"I'm mindful that there's a thorough investigation going on. If in fact, laws were broken, there will be punishment."

Sons traumatized

Meanwhile, the parents of two U.S. marines say their sons were traumatized by the aftermath of Haditha.

"It was horrific. It was a terrible scene," said Susie Briones, whose 21-year-old son was told to clean up the bodies and take photographs with his personal digital camera. "The biggest thing that comes to his mind is the children."

Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones now suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, his mother said in an interview from her home in California. The memory of one Iraqi girl particularly haunts him, she said.

"That's what affects him the most is that he had to pick up this child's body, to put it in a body bag."

Military seized cameras

In an earlier interview with the Los Angeles Times, Briones said he and Lance Cpl. Andrew Wright, 20, did not take part in the shootings but had to deal with the aftermath.

"They ranged from little babies to adult males and females," Briones said. "I'll never be able to get that out of my head. I can still smell the blood. This left something in my head and heart."

Briones said he provided the digital photos he took to his supervisors, then erased them from his camera. Military investigators later seized the photographic equipment.

Wright's father, Frederick, said his son was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

''He is the Forrest Gump of the military,'' he said. ''He ended up in the spotlight through no fault of his own.''

Wright's camera was also seized.

Deaths 'not justifiable,' says Iraqi PM

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Tuesday that his government will investigate the Haditha allegations.

"It is not justifiable that a family is killed because someone is fighting terrorists," the Associated Press quoted al-Maliki as saying. "We have to be more specific and more careful."

The Bush administration has promised to make public all the details of the alleged killings after the U.S. military investigation is complete.

In the meantime, marines from the company involved have been confined to barracks at Camp Pendleton in California or are being held in the brig.

A separate probe is looking into whether the U.S. military tried to cover up the Haditha incident. Initially, officials said many of the dead civilians were "combatants" and the others were caught in crossfire between militants and American troops.

The Bush administration has promised full public disclosure of the findings of military probes into the alleged killing of at least 24 civilians by US Marines in Iraq.

Two separate probes are currently underway by the US Defense Department into the killings, and officials have said those investigations were near completion.

The investigations aim to learn what happened on November 19, 2005 in Haditha and how the incident was handled by commanding officers in the military hierarchy.

Whatever the outcome of the Pentagon investigations, the allegations could hamper US military operations that require cooperation with Iraqi security forces and citizens, a US general said on Wednesday.

"Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are born out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of US forces to continue to operate," said General Carter Ham, deputy director for regional operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"We do rely very heavily and the Iraqi security forces rely heavily on the support from the Iraqi people, and anything that tends to diminish that obviously is not helpful to what we're trying to do," Ham told a press conference in Washington.

A prominent US lawmaker and others have accused the military of trying to cover up the November incident, which has become the most serious scandal to dog US-led coalition forces in Iraq since revelations of abuse at the
Abu Ghraib prison.

Bush recently referred to the Abu Ghraib scandal, which triggered outrage in the Middle East and across the Islamic world, as the biggest mistake committed by Americans in Iraq.

Marine Corporal James Crossman, who was deployed in Haditha the day the killings occurred and was injured in a bomb attack there, told CNN television in an interview that some of his fellow marines "might have got scared".

"Like, after seeing so much death and destruction, pretty soon you just become numb and really don't think about it anymore," Crossman, who suffered a broken back and pelvis, said.

Marines went on a house-to-house search after the bomb exploded injuring Crossman and killing another marine.

The allegations of indiscriminate killing in Haditha threaten to damage the difficult US mission in Iraq as well as Bush's attempts to rally flagging public support for the war.

The case has already been compared with the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war. The killing of hundreds of civilians by US soldiers on March 16, 1968 helped bolster opposition to that war.

Bush said, however, that rather than try to conceal the alleged crimes, the marines are compelled to seek justice in the case.

"Nobody is more concerned about these allegations than the Marine Corps," Bush said.

The president said he had discussed the matter with General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The shooting came to light in a Time magazine report in late March which cited an Iraqi human rights group and Haditha residents.

According to the reports, after the bomb detonated, killing one marine, marines barged into a home in the Iraqi village, throwing grenades and shooting several people, including women and children, in cold blood.

The official version of events had insisted the civilians were killed in a roadside bomb.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that death certificates show all the Iraqi victims in Haditha had gunshot wounds, mostly to the head and chest.

"A local national sedan entered a clearly marked prohibited area near coalition troops at an observation post," said US military statement. "As the vehicle neared the troop location and failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory signals, disabling shots were fired into the vehicle."

"The loss of life in these incidents is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to avoid them," the statement added.

Known as "escalation of force incidents", these events happen often in the tense atmosphere of Iraq, especially in areas characterized by heavy insurgent activity, such as Samarra.

The military reported a second non-fatal incident early in the morning on Wednesday just north of Samarra in the violent oil refining town of Baiji when a car approached a joint Iraq-US checkpoint without stopping.

"A soldier fired a single disabling shot at the vehicle resulting in the passenger being wounded," said the US military, adding that the woman was then treated at a US medical facility.

On Tuesday, Ibn al-Nafis hospital in Baghdad reported that a woman was killed by coalition forces when a US patrol fired on her car, though the US military said it had only one escalation of force incident that day which did not result in casualties.

With the rise in suicide attacks using explosives against US forces over the last year, Iraqis are ordered to keep strict distance from US convoys and checkpoints.

Signs displayed on vehicles warn other cars to stay 100 meters away and that "deadly force is authorized", but in the crowded traffic of Iraq's cities, these rules are often hard to obey.

US soldiers have told AFP how in many cases civilian cars will be completely oblivious of a US army convoy bearing down on them until the rules of engagement necessitate the firing of a warning shot.

Many army units have evolved alternative methods to get the attention of civilian vehicles, such as car sirens, laser pointers and harmless flash grenades.

The incidents continue however, with one of the worst happening in November 2005 when a minibus filled with a family members returning home from a funeral in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad ran afoul of newly established US military checkpoint near an army base.

Soldiers opened fire and five family members, including three children, were shot dead.

The sudden focus on such incidents comes amid the furor over an alleged marine rampage in November in the western Iraqi town of Haditha in which 24 civilians died.

President George W. Bush has described himself as "troubled" by the Haditha events and twin probes by the US military are currently underway.

"The fighting between Islamic courts and warlords has started in the El Arfid and Dermoley areas," said Moalim Ashi, an elder in the nearby town of Balad, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the capital.

More than 500 heavily armed fighters on both sides backed by scores of machine gun-mounted pick-ups were involved in the clashes that sent hundreds of villagers fleeing in terror, witnesses said.

"At least three people were killed in today's fighting and seven more others were wounded," Abdi Ibrahim, a doctor at the Al-Hikma Hospital, told AFP.

The alliance had been regrouping in Balad with reinforcements from the town of Jowhar, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of Mogadishu, with an eye to attacking the Islamists.

Witnesses said the fighting had cut road between the capital and Jowhar.

In Mogadishu itself, sporadic gunfire could be heard around the northeastern neighborhood of Sukahola, where the Islamists seized alliance positions in well-coordinated attacks on Wednesday, residents said.

A day after the two sides pounded each other with heavy machine gun, rocket and artillery fire, the area was tense but generally violence free, although the death toll from Wednesday's clashes rose by three to 10, they said.

"Apart from the sporadic gunfire, Sukahola is relatively calm," said resident Abdulahmed Noor, who like others expressed deep concern about a resumption in battles.

"We fear fighting could erupt at anytime because the gunmen have not moved from the frontlines," said Sukahola resident Amina Mohamed.

In addition to three people who succumbed to wounds overnight, doctors at Al-Hakma hospital, citing militia sources, said another three fighters had been killed on Wednesday, bringing that death toll to 13.

"They told us that they had buried three of their fighters on the scene," Ashi said.

The latest fatalities brought to at least 78 the number of people killed in the most recent round of clashes that began last Wednesday, worsened Thursday and exploded on Saturday, when 30 people died.

More than 316 people have been killed and more than 1,500 wounded, many of them civilians, since the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) and the Islamic courts began battling in February.

Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since 1991 and the country's largely powerless transitional government, based in Baidoa about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, has blamed both the alliance and the United States for the fighting.

The United States denies responsibility for the clashes although it has refused to confirm or deny its support for the ARPCT.

But US officials and informed Somali sources have told AFP that Washington has given money to the ARPCT, one of several groups it is working with to curb what it says is a growing threat from radical Islamists in Somalia.

Rutterschmidt is a feisty music lover from Hungary. She has an expired electrolysis license and little visible means of support but hinted to her Hollywood neighbors that she knew of ways to make easy money.

Golay is an outwardly prosperous Santa Monica landlord. Her penchants are for pantsuits and big bouffants, as well as for siccing lawyers on those who cross her, including her own daughter.

And although their backgrounds could scarcely be more different, they have shared a tendency over the years to alienate, sue and ultimately baffle the people around them, according to court records and interviews.

The women filed nearly 40 lawsuits between them over the last two decades, usually demanding money for alleged wrongs.

Golay sought damages from a woman she claimed stole leather skirts from her. She also sued a health club, saying she was hurt on an exercise machine.

Rutterschmidt sued the Ralphs supermarket chain, contending that stacked boxes fell on her, and she later took a Hollywood coffee shop to court, claiming that a fellow diner - a woman trained as a minister - kicked her and zapped her with a stun gun.

On Tuesday a federal grand jury indicted Golay, 75, and Rutterschmidt, 72, on 10 counts of fraud in connection with more than $2 million in life insurance policies that they took out on Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid, who were struck and killed by cars in 1999 and 2005.

Authorities say the women, who were arrested May 18, are also under investigation in the deaths.

"What a piece of work," said Kevin Rea, a neighbor who has known Rutterschmidt three years. "She's alternatively reclusive and then really in your face. She has this bombastic manner about her, this operatic presence."

Rea and others who live in the slightly worn apartment building off Hollywood Boulevard where Rutterschmidt has resided since the 1970s said she often expressed disdain for conventional work, while suggesting that quick riches could be found.

"She kind of intimated that there were avenues to extra money," said Rea, a probation officer.

State records show that Rutterschmidt held a license to perform electrolysis from 1975 to 1997, although neighbors said she gave no indication of having worked in the hair removal field.

Dwight Emile, another resident of the Sycamore Avenue building, said he has known Rutterschmidt casually about 20 years but never learned what she did for a living, if anything.

Emile, a composer, said she would visit his apartment to play his keyboard and borrow his CDs.

"She'd say, 'You want to make a little extra money?' I'd say, 'No.' "

He said he did not ask her what she had in mind.

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At the building, Emile said, Rutterschmidt acted as "the enforcer" - scolding residents for playing their stereos too loud or talking in the hallways late at night.

"She was aggressive," he said.

Across town, Yonni Afman, who rented a Santa Monica apartment from Golay for four years, described his landlady in similar terms. He said she seemed to harbor an unreasoning contempt for her tenants.

She called the police on them over minor parking and noise complaints, and refused to discuss any problems they had with their apartments, he said.

"She would yell at you, 'You can call my lawyer,' " Afman said.

Golay sheltered an apparently homeless woman in an attic room on the property for a number of weeks, then abruptly kicked her out, he said.

"She would lock herself up and cry all day in that little room," Afman said of the woman.

Rutterschmidt and Golay were not related to Vados and McDavid, but allegedly put the homeless men up in apartments and kept track of them for two years. That is the period after which the insurances policies generally could not be voided for misrepresentations, according to court documents.

The women are accused of collecting the insurance money after claiming to be the men's aunts, cousins, business partners or, in Golay's case, a fiancee. They were arrested after being spotted in the company of other indigent men, authorities say.

Much about Rutterschmidt and Golay is still unknown, including precisely when and where they met. One person familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they bumped into each other more than 20 years ago in the Los Angeles area.

Their lawyers and relatives either could not be reached or did not return phone calls.

Rutterschmidt appears to be a loner with no family in this country. Neighbors say that she had been married to an Endre Rutterschmidt but that they never saw him.

Voter records show that Endre Rutterschmidt listed Olga's apartment as his address and cast an absentee ballot in last November's election.

But one longtime tenant said Rutterschmidt had told him her husband died several years ago.

The tenant, who other residents said was closest to Rutterschmidt, asked not to be identified because he feared being drawn into the investigation.

He said Rutterschmidt confided in him that she had been quarreling with Golay over money.

She said she worked with Golay as a "scout" for real estate purchases, he added.

Rutterschmidt had a passion for classical music and daily hikes in Runyon Canyon, the tenant and other neighbors said. She drove a Honda Civic and sued a motorist and an insurance company over two accidents.

By contrast, Golay owned a Mercedes SUV, which remained parked outside her Ocean Park Boulevard home last week, her granddaughter's leopard-print car seat strapped in the back.

Golay, who was born Helen Salisbury in Eastland County, Texas, is a former real estate agent and mother of three daughters, according to court and licensing documents. Her complete marital history could not be verified, but records show she wed a David J. Wells in 1970. He could not be located.

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A man identified as Golay's boyfriend in a 2003 lawsuit, Santa Monica resident Gary Hilaiel, declined to discuss their relationship except to say she was "just a friend."

"I don't believe the charges against Helen," he said.

Apart from her three rental properties in Santa Monica, Golay owns land in Playa del Rey, the Antelope Valley and Madera County.

She obtained title to acreage in Playa del Rey and the Antelope Valley after another court battle over her right to the property. Golay had secured power of attorney for the president of a company that owned the land. She asked a court to affirm that she later became the owner, and a judge ruled in her favor.

Attorneys in the matter did not return phone calls.

The day after Golay's arrest, her daughter, Kecia Golay, said her mother had done nothing wrong. "We have a regular life," she said.

But it has been a litigious and sometimes tumultuous one.

Helen Golay filed the bulk of the lawsuits - more than 30 since the 1980s - against tenants, real estate partners, banks, health clubs, restaurants and neighbors.

Her complaints included failure to pay rent and deceitful practices in land deals. She won some and lost others, and the rest were dismissed.

In 2003, as part of a family dispute, she sued Kecia Golay and her daughter's then-boyfriend, Steve Taracevicz of Santa Monica, seeking more than $275,000 in damages.

She accused her daughter of assaulting her and trespassing on her property.

Kecia Golay and Taracevicz denied all the allegations. They said in court papers that Helen Golay had threatened to kill him, scraped his car with a key and hired a security guard to keep him from visiting her daughter. They also said Helen had exhibited "30 years of psychopathic behavior."

In 2004, Kecia Golay filed a suit against her mother, claiming Helen falsely acted as the daughter's "attorney in fact" and engaged in other deceitful conduct to cheat her out of ownership stakes in four properties.

The mother and daughter appear to have reconciled. Kecia Golay pleaded no contest last year to charges of stalking Taracevicz and is scheduled to begin serving a 200-day jail sentence next month, according to the district attorney's office.

A lawyer for Kecia Golay declined to comment, as did Taracevicz.

In the meantime, Helen Golay and Rutterschmidt have half a dozen suits pending against insurance companies that balked at paying the policies taken out on Vados and McDavid.

Even those who had little good to say about Rutterschmidt and Golay found it hard to believe that they could have carried out the cold-blooded scheme alleged in the Vados and McDavid cases.

"Mean behavior didn't make me think automatically she was a murderer," said David Rodwin, a Santa Monica tenant of Golay's.

He said Golay erected a fence across his patio to prevent him from having barbecues, painted the curb red to keep anyone from parking near the gate and often lurked around the 3rd Street property.

"I felt she was spying on us," said Rodwin, a film writer and producer. "I would honestly hide from her when she was prowling around the grounds. I didn't want to talk to her."

Rea, the neighbor, said he also tried to avoid Rutterschmidt.

"What a shocker," he said of her arrest. "That's what living in a big city is all about. You have Olgas."

Lake County deputies said Robert Jackson, 60, and his wife, Versie, 59, traveled to a Best Western hotel Tuesday to meet a hit man -- who was an undercover law enforcement officer.

"(The couple) met with the so-called hit man, where they paid the hit man $100 in cash as a down payment for the murder of the wife and her three children," Lake County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Christie Mysinger said.

"According to an arrest affidavit, Versie Jackson made contact with the undercover agent while her husband stayed in the car because he was reportedly too afraid the meet the person who would kill his grandchildren and daughter-in-law," Local 6 reporter Louis Bolden said.

The couple was taken into custody after the money was exchanged.

After an investigation, authorities said the couple's son, Jason Jackson, 31, concocted the alleged murder-for-hire plan from jail and asked his parents to seal the deal, Bolden said.

The 31-year-old is awaiting trial in a sexual molestation case, and his wife and children were scheduled to testify against him.

Investigators said the rest of the money was to be paid to the hit man after the family members were killed Tuesday night.

The daughter-in-law, Karen Jackson, was shocked to hear about the plan to kill her, her children and pet dog, according to Local 6 News.

"I never saw this coming," Jackson said. "I loved (him) with all my heart. (He) was good to me and good to the kids. (He) was a nice guy, everybody's friend. (He was) like a Ted Bundy charmer. He has to be a psychopath."

Jackson said after her husband's arrest last year, her in-laws stopped speaking with her.

She said she plans to testify against her husband and both in-laws.

Both grandparents remain in the Lake County Jail without bond.

Police found the bodies of Phuong Hung Le, 30, his wife, Trish Dawn Lam, 25, and Lam's 6-year-old son, Tommy, on Monday when they conducted a welfare check at the family's home on a street lined with two-story stucco houses about 35 miles southeast of Los Angeles in Orange County.

Because of the girl's dehydrated state, detectives believe the killings may have happened Friday night - the last time the family was heard from. She was taken to a hospital for treatment and placed in protective custody. She was not immediately identified.

"It's one of the most horrific crimes that we have investigated in many years," police Lt. Dennis Ellsworth said.

He said there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting the couple might have known their attacker. "It looks like they took some time in the house, it wasn't like they went in and left right away," Ellsworth said.

Investigators did not know the motive for the attack, and no arrests had been made. They ruled out a murder-suicide.

Police would not say whether a security camera nestled on the eaves recorded anything or even if it was functional.

People left flowers, a teddy bear and burning incense sticks near the crime scene in a cul-de-sac lined with new tract homes Wednesday.

Among those who came by was Huong Nguyen of Westminster, who said she was a friend of the slain woman.

Nguyen, speaking in Vietnamese, said she last spoke to Lam on Friday night and wondered why there had been no communication over the Memorial Day weekend until she learned of the crime in a newscast. She had expected Lam to come by with her children.

Nguyen said that during visits Lam told her that she loved her husband but that he gambled.

"I really love her because she reminds me of my daughter," said Nguyen, her eyes teary.

Lam's older brother, Philip, said his family was struggling to understand how the killings could happen.

"I'm trying to figure this all out," Philip Lam said in a telephone interview from the family home in Escondido. "So far there are a lot of broken hearts around here."

Philip Lam said the family emigrated from Vietnam a decade ago, and that his sister was the kind of person who was always willing to help out.

According to police, Trish Lam worked for a small casino in San Bernardino County and Le was unemployed. Le had a criminal history, but police said they were not sure whether that had any bearing on the case.

State prison records showed a Phong Hung Le was sentenced to four years on a robbery conviction and more than two years for destruction of jail property. The couple, who had been dating for several years, married in 2005, according to Trish Lam's brother.

"I don't know about enemies and I don't know how my brother-in-law was doing. He was always home. He didn't really go out much," Philip Lam said.

As for the baby girl, he said his parents would like to raise her if they can.