Dick Cheney's last throes continue in Iraq:

14 Insurgents and 10 Iraqi Soldiers Killed in Separate Clashes

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 11 (AP) - American soldiers killed 14 insurgents in two days of fighting in the strategic northern city of Tal Afar, the American military said Monday, and gunmen killed 10 Iraqi soldiers in the central Sunni heartland.

Soldiers of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment killed 4 insurgents in a gun battle on Sunday, and 10 more were killed Monday as fighting raged in Tal Afar, 260 miles north of Baghdad, the military reported. American troops suffered no casualties, a statement said.

However, insurgents hit an Iraqi force hard in Khalis, 45 miles north of Baghdad. Guerrillas firing mortars, machine guns and semiautomatic weapons stormed an Iraqi checkpoint about 5 a.m., killing eight Iraqi soldiers, said the Khalis police chief, Col. Mahdi Saleh.

About 90 minutes later, a car bomb exploded a few miles away as an Iraqi Army patrol passed, killing two soldiers, Colonel Saleh said. Two soldiers and three civilians were wounded in the attacks.

The terrorist group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement on the Web, but the authenticity of the posting could not be confirmed. On June 15, a suicide bomber wearing an army uniform blew himself up in an Iraqi Army mess hall in Khalis, killing 26 soldiers.

Six civilians were also killed in the Tal Afar fighting and 22 were wounded, according to the city police chief, Brig. Gen. Najim Abdullah al-Jubouri. Some of the wounded were hospital workers, officials said.

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