Six Iraqi police were killed and seven wounded early Wednesday in an attack by militants on their position in a remote area north of Baghdad, a military source said.
"Between 10 and 15 ISIS group militants attacked this federal police forward position around 12:30 am (2130 GMT Tuesday). The attack lasted around an hour," the source said, asking not to be identified.
The attackers struck near the village of Al-Jillam in an area 140 kilometers north of Baghdad where extremists remain active, AFP reported.
ISIS established a so-called “caliphate” across swathes of Syria and Iraq from 2014.
It was defeated in Iraq in 2017 after offensives by Iraqi forces with the support of the US-led coalition that has included more than 80 countries, among them Britain, France and several Arab nations.
Even though Iraq declared victory against ISIS in December 2017, the group's remnants still carry out sporadic attacks against security forces, particularly in sparsely populated desert or mountain areas.
The last major attack claimed by the extremists came in July last year, when they bombed a market in the Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City.
The US-led coalition formed to fight ISIS formally ended its combat mission in Iraq in December, shifting to a training and advisory role.
The 2,500 US and 1,000 other coalition troops had been acting as advisers and trainers since mid-2020.
