Baghdad - The row over the role of Kurdish fighters, or peshmerga, in Iraq came to a head Monday, as officials warned them against operating outside the country's northern Kurdish Autonomous Region.

"If the peshmerga are deployed outside the Kurdish Autonomous Region, it is unconstitutional," said Abdel Karim al-Samarrai, the acting head of the Iraqi parliament's security committee.

The presence of peshmerga in the city of Khanakin, which lies in the province of Diyala, has caused friction, according to a statement from al-Samarrai posted on the website of his party, the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front.

Baghdad - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered an investigation Sunday into the killing of four journalists, according to a cabinet statement.

Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice to receive the just punishment they deserve, the statement said.

The journalists worked for Iraqi TV station al-Sharqia.

Unknown gunmen kidnapped them on Saturday in western Mosul, 405 kilometres north of Baghdad, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Baghdad - Seven policem

Baghdad - Six Kurdish peshmerga (militia) members were killed and three wounded as a bomb exploded on Saturday east of the disputed town of Khanaqin in northern Iraq as their patrol was passing, a security official said.

The relatively calm town, 57 kilometres north-east of Baghdad, came into the limelight in August following the deployment of mainstream Iraqi forces into the district claimed by Kurds.

Although it lies outside the Kurdish autonomous region, Khanaqin is inhabited mainly by Kurds.

Arbil, Iraq  - Heavy floods in the Choman district of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq left at least three people dead and more than 100 houses destroyed, Choman district leader, Abdul Wahid Giwani, said Friday.

The floods, which took place from late Wednesday through Thursday, also totally destroyed two bridges, cutting access to the district which is situated in the Kurdish province of Arbil, the Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.

According to Giwani, the bodies of a farmer and his wife and daughter were found.

Baghdad - Extremists in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killed three members of the same family, the US military reported on Friday.