Three US soldiers have been charged with manslaughter in the drowning death of an Iraqi civilian. The man was forced to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River in Baghdad in January, the Army said.

A fourth soldier was charged with assault for ordering a second Iraqi to jump off the bridge. The detainee survived.�

All four soldiers were also yesterday charged with trying to cover up the incident.

The soldiers are assigned to the 3rd Brigade at Fort Carson, Colorado.�The brigade�is part of the 4th Infantry, based at Fort Hood, Texas.

The new charges come just two weeks after a soldier in the First Armored Division was charged with murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian in May after a high-speed chase in Kufa, south-central Iraq.

The US Army has now opened investigations into the deaths of at least 40 Iraqi detainees, indicating a widening pattern of prisoner abuse, including deaths and assault, beyond the confines of the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.