The charges were unveiled on Sunday after an investigation into allegations that American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division raped and killed the teenager, then shot to death her father, mother and sister at their home in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. But the suspects were not identified until Monday.

Four soldiers - Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, Spc. James P. Barker, Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard - were accused of rape and murder and several other charges. They could face the death penalty if convicted.

A fifth, Sgt. Anthony W. Yribe, was charged for his failure to report the attack but is not alleged to have been a direct participant, the military said. The others face more serious charges as participants.

The five will face an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding, to determine if they should stand trial.

They are charged with conspiring with ex-soldier Steven D. Green, who was arrested last month in North Carolina. Green has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of murder and is being held without bond.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell declined to comment further on details about the attack, citing the ongoing investigation.

"But they obviously had enough information in the initial investigation to go ahead and charge those four soldiers all with alleged rape, rape, obstruction of justice, housebreaking, arson and the other offenses," he told reporters in Baghdad.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in Green's case, he and at least two others targeted the teenager and her family for a week before the attack, which was not revealed until witnesses came forward in late June.

The soldiers drank alcohol, abandoned their checkpoint, changed clothes to avoid detection and headed to the victims' house, about 200 meters (yards) from a U.S. military checkpoint in the so-called "Triangle of Death," a Sunni Arab area south of Baghdad known for its violence, the affidavit said.

The affidavit estimated the rape victim was about 25. But a doctor at the Mahmoudiya hospital gave her age as 14. He refused to be identified for fear of reprisals.

Green is accused of raping the woman and killing her and three relatives - an adult male and female and a girl estimated to be 5 years old. An official familiar with the investigation said he set fire to the rape victim's body in an apparent cover-up attempt.

Iraqi authorities identified the rape victim as Abeer Qassim Hamza. The other victims were her father, Qassim Hamza; her mother, Fikhriya Taha; and her sister, Hadeel Qassim Hamza.

The March 12 attack on the family was among the worst in a series of cases of U.S. troops accused of killing and abusing Iraqi civilians.

U.S. officials are concerned the alleged rape-slaying will strain relations with the new U.S.-backed government and increase calls for changes in an agreement that exempts American soldiers from prosecution in Iraqi courts.