"Kurdish security forces in cooperation with other security forces arrested a group of eight terrorists," said Brigadier General Hassan Nouri, commander of security forces in Sulaimaniyah city.

"The group are all Kurds and were linked to the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group via neighbouring nations. They have confessed their intent to carry out attacks," he said. "We confiscated maps and some explosive material."

Nouri did not identify the neighbouring nations allegedly involved in the plot. He said the group had planned to carry attacks using explosive devices that are easily attached to the undersides of vehicles.

Sulaimaniyah province north of Baghdad and near the Iran border is part of the autonomous Kurdish administration of northern Iraq.

Ansar al-Islam, a Sunni-Kurd extremist group that has claimed several attacks against American and Iraqi forces, is listed as a terrorist group by the United States.

It opposes the presence of US troops in Iraq and is at odds with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massud Barzani, who heads the regional Kurdish government.

Nouri said the men were arrested in the Khurmal region of the province, which was an Ansar al-Islam sanctuary prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In a separate operation on Tuesday in Rabia near the Syrian border and west of restive Mosul city, Iraqi forces captured three suspected insurgents, a US military statement said.

"The individuals are believed to be extorting money from civilian and commercial traffic then transferring it to other local terrorists' cells," the statement said.