MOSUL (AFP) -- Eleven Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush Monday by unidentified attackers in a northern region around Mosul, where a major crackdown against Al-Qaeda began last week, a local leader told AFP.

The soldiers' minibus ran into the ambush after leaving their base near Al-Baaj, some 150 kilometres (95 miles) from Mosul, senior town figure Abdul Rahim Shimmari told AFP.
He said some of the men were killed execution-style with a bullet to the head. All 11 were new recruits to the army.
The Iraq army, with U.S. support, on May 14 launched operations against members of the Al-Qaeda extremist network in the capital of Nineveh province which borders Syria and Turkey some 380 kilometres northwest of Baghdad.
Mosul has a population of around 1.5 million and is regarded by the U.S. military as the final urban bastion of Al-Qaeda jihadists.
Iraqi security forces on Sunday arrested Abdel Khaleq Awad al-Sabawi, whom they believe to be Al-Qaeda's military chief for Nineveh, the military said.
The top Iraqi commander in Nineveh, Khaled Abdul Sattar, said 42 suspected members of Al-Qaeda had been arrested there since Sunday in action involving 3,000 Iraqi troops, Iraqi helicopters and US planes.
The suspects were taken to jail in Mosul for interrogation, an AFP photographer reported.