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.

Following an agreement between the central government and Kurdish officials Iraqi forces withdrew from the town.

The agreement states that the peshmerga would re-assume control of the area and Iraqi forces would not be allowed in without the prior approval of Kurdish local authorities.

Meanwhile an Iraqi official was injured in an assassination attempt in Salah al-Din province north of Baghdad, the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency reported.

Rasheed Ali Ahmed, the head of Salah al-Din municipal council, and one of his bodyguards was wounded when a car bomb went off as he was passing in Sulaiman Bik district, police said. (dpa)