Iraqi security forces have arrested at least eight suspects with suspected links to the terrorist al-Qaeda network in the northern city of Kirkuk.

"Eight members of the Islamic State of Iraq were captured on Thursday during an anti-terror operation across the oil-rich Kirkuk and a full-scale investigation exposed a site where chemical explosives and devices, together with car bombs were hidden," said Jamal Taher, the head of Kirkuk's police department.

He added that a man has also been detained on charges of funding the terrorist cell.

The al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq is one of a handful of Sunni Arab extremist groups responsible for numerous bombings and other attacks on civilian targets throughout war-shattered Iraq. It is spearheading the insurgency against US troops and forces loyal to the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki.

Earlier this month, Iraqi security forces arrested five suspected Al-Qaeda militants from the village of al-Dibs, north of Kirkuk.

This is while a cameraman for the Baghdad-based al-Rasheed satellite television channel lost his life on Thursday as a bomb explosion ripped through his car in al-Khadraa district in southern Kirkuk.

A local police told Xinhua news agency, on condition of anonymity, that Orhan Hijran was killed when a roadside bomb went off in the afternoon at al-Khadraa district in southern Kirkuk. He added that another journalist with the independent Iraqi Arabic-language al-Baghdadia satellite channel, Mohammed Abdullah, also sustained injuries in the incident.

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