Baghdad  - The Iraqi Defence Ministry signed on Wednesday two agreements for the withdrawal of British and Australian troops from Iraq in 2009, a ministry spokesman said.

The agreements came hours before the expiration of the United Nations Security Council mandate governing the presence of foreign troops in the country. Under the agreements British and Australian troops will leave Iraq by July 2009.

Currently some 4,100 British troops and 1,000 Australian troops are stationed in Iraq.

Iraq and US had signed a security agreement in November covering the withdrawal of all US troops by mid-2010.

Meanwhile at least 11 people were killed in further separate incidents of violence around the country on Wednesday.

A car bomb Wednesday ripped through a market in the northern city of Mosul, killing five and injuring another 35, police sources said.

Also in central Mosul, unknown gunmen shot and killed a journalist before fleeing. The gunmen also exchanged fire with Iraqi police, killing one policeman and wounding another. The journalist, Muafaq al-Himdani, was a former editor at Mosul's Al-Raya newspaper. He was also running for Mosul's provincial elections.

Meanwhile, a bomb hit a police patrol near Mosul University, killing two civilians and injuring nine others.

Separately, a bomb struck an army patrol in Diyala province, killing two Iraqi soldiers and injuring another two, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Although security forces in Iraq have pacified the majority of Iraq's provinces, Diyala and Baghdad are still hit by frequent violence.

Despite the attacks, overall violence has fallen sharply in Iraq over the past year. (dpa)