Attacks in Iraq killed 15 people yesterday, including four members of a family who were murdered with knives, security and medical officials said.

Militants attacked the house of a Turkmen family in Kirkuk in northern Iraq, killing a father, mother and two daughters with knives.

An AFP journalist at the scene said that the bodies of the husband and wife were in one room, and the two daughters in another. Blood was everywhere.

A police source said that nothing was stolen, and that it appeared to be a revenge attack.

Gunmen also shot dead four police officers in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, while three members of the Sahwa anti-Qaeda militia were killed by a bomb near Balad, also north of the capital, security and medical officials said.