Iraq Watch: July 11, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 10 Iraqi soldiers were killed after insurgents attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Khalis, about 45 miles north of Baghdad. Two Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were wounded in the pre-dawn attacks claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq in a statement posted on a militant web site.

The U.S. military announced today that two U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday by indirect fire near the town of Hit.

The U.S. military also announced that it has killed 14 suspected insurgents over the past two days in Tal Afar, located 260 miles north of the capital. The AP reports that six civilians were killed and 22 injured in the fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents.

South of Baghdad, near the town of al-Azisiyah, two Iraqi soldiers were shot to death as they searched homes in the area.

The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars on Monday accused Iraqi Interior Ministry police of suffocating to death nine Iraqi Sunni bricklayers who were arrested on Sunday in the western Amariyah district of Baghdad. After being taken to police headquarters nearby the suspects were allegedly beaten and then thrown into the back of a police van where nine of the 11 men later died from suffocation.