AFP - An Iraqi Turkmen leader was assassinated at his home in the northern city of Mosul on Sunday by gunmen who knocked at his door then shot him, police and Turkmen sources said.

"Armed men opened fire at Yauz Ahmad Efendi before making their escape," a police official told AFP.

Efendi was a member of the executive committee of the Turkmen Front, Iraq's main Turkmen political party.

"His son answered the door and they asked to speak to his father. When he arrived at the door they opened fire," Turkmen MP Safaeddin Arkij said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu telephoned Turkmen community leaders to "offer the condolences of the Turkish people," the MP said.

Iraq's Turkish-speaking Turkmen community includes about 500,000 people living mostly in Mosul, Kirkuk and Tal Afar. They have been the target of a number of deadly attacks, blamed by local authorities on Al-Qaeda.

The Turkmen population and Arabs of northern Iraq are in open conflict with the Kurdish community which wants to the oil town of Kirkuk and several other areas to join its semi-autonomous region.

Also on Sunday, a child was killed and four other people were wounded when a grenade exploded as a police patrol passed through a Mosul market.

Another person was killed in north Mosul, one of the last pockets of insurgency in Iraq.