"At 9.00 am (0500 GMT) one of our patrols came under attack from unidentified gunmen," said Brigadier General Ahmed Deskara, a senior border guard commander stationed in the nearby city of Sulaimaniyah.

One of the seven guards killed was an officer, he added.

Border guards have come under attack in the past from an extreme Islamist group which calls itself Al-Qaeda in Kurdistan -- formerly Ansar al-Islam -- which operates along the porous border between Iran and Iraq.

Meanwhile, three policemen including an officer were killed and two others wounded during clashes with armed men west of the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, according to local police.

And in the village of Aziziyah south of Baghdad gunmen burst into the home of a local city councillor, Hassim Jassim, and killed his wife and son, according to Police Lieutenant Ali Kadhim.

Jassim was not in the house at the time of the attack, he added.

Just outside the northern Iraqi oil refinery town of Baiji, a Turkish truck driver died in a roadside bomb blast, according to local police.