Baghdad - A tribal police leader escaped an assassination attempt on Wednesday when a car bomb went off targeting his motorcade in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a police source said.

Abdel Karim Nasief, director of Multaqa district, was west of Kirkuk when an bomb-laden car struck his motorcade, injuring him and three of his security men, a police source told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.

Tribal police, also known as "Awakening Councils," are US-backed Sunni units formed to fight militants from the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq.

Tribal leaders who were tired of al-Qaeda's indiscriminate killings and austere version of Islam collaborated with the US military to fight the terrorist organization.

The Awakening Councils have attributed to the violence decline in provinces like Anbar, Diyala and Salahaddin. (dpa)