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BAGHDAD - Seven Iranian soldiers were killed when they strayed into a minefield laid along their border with Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, a local Kurdish official said on Thursday.

Jabar Yawar, spokesman for the local Iraqi Kurdish forces, said the Iranian troops were new to the area and had accidentally entered a minefield laid by Iran along the remote frontier with Kurdistan.

Kurdish separatists are active in the mountains in the area and have clashed with Iranian troops in the past.

"The newly arrived forces were unaware of the existence of a minefield where they got trapped. The mines killed all of them. There were seven of them, according to the information we have obtained," Yawar told Reuters.