The five soldiers, whose names and ranks are being withheld, were charged Saturday with assault, maltreatment and dereliction of duty.

The soldiers are assigned to the 75th Ranger Regiment, an elite special operations unit based at Fort Benning in Georgia. They were guarding a small group of prisoners who were about to be moved to detention facilities in Iraq.

Maj. Timothy Keefe, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said the detainees were "involved in terrorist activities against the United States and Iraq."

Army commanders launched an investigation Sept. 8, Keefe said. The five Rangers have been assigned administrative duties while commanders decide whether they will face court-martial, Keefe said.

Although the prisoners received mostly bruises, Keefe said, "the allegations are serious. We don't tolerate people who are going to behave that way."

The issue of detainee abuse first grabbed the public's attention in April 2004, when photographs surfaced of U.S. soldiers abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad.

Since the war in Iraq began, the military has conducted more than 400 investigations of detainee mistreatment involving at least 230 U.S. troops, said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon.

It was not known whether the latest abuse allegations were reported by U.S. troops or detainees. The soldiers who have been charged were assigned to a joint task force operating in Iraq.

The Army has refused to discuss the specifics of the soldiers' mission.

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