Eight members of the Kurdish police force were killed on Sunday morning in northern Iraq in a suicide bomb attack, according to Iraqi officials.
A district official and a doctor speaking to AFP said that the bomber detonated a car behind a three vehicle police convoy in the northern Kurdish town of Tuz Khurmatu.
Nine other officers were injured, AFP reported.
The police confirmed the toll.
The town of Tuz Khurmatu lies in a contentious region in the north of Iraq that the Kurds seek to incorporate into their autonomous region, which is made up of three provinces.
The Kurdish move to autonomy has been dismissed by Baghdad and has, according to some critics of Iraqi government policy, seriously jeopardised hopes of long term stability in Iraq.
More than 720 have died in Iraq over the course of July, making it the deadliest month in a year marked by sectarian violence and the highest death tolls since 2008 and the US led invasion of the country, according to AFP.
