Baghdad: A total of three Iraqi security personnel were killed and four others wounded in two Islamic State (IS) attacks in the Iraqi provinces of Kirkuk and Salahudin, provincial security sources said Thursday.

In the central province of Salahudin, IS militants attacked late Wednesday a joint checkpoint of the police and paramilitary tribal fighters in the town of Yathrib, some 70 km north of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, Mohammed al-Bazi from the provincial police command told Xinhua.

Two policemen and a tribal fighter were killed in the attack which also resulted in the injury of a policeman, al-Bazi said, adding the security forces launched a search operation in the area for the attackers.

In a separate incident, three federal policemen, including a colonel, were wounded on Thursday morning in the northern province of Kirkuk when a roadside bomb exploded in al-Rashad area in the southwest of the namesake provincial capital, some 250 km north of Baghdad, Taha Ahmed from the provincial police told Xinhua.

The security forces rushed to the scene and launched an investigation into the incident which is believed to be carried out by IS sleeper cells in the area, Ahmed said.

The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.

IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.