KIRKUK: Two Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters were killed on Saturday in an attack near the northern province of Kurdistan blamed on the Islamic State group, authorities in the autonomous region said.

A checkpoint near the provincial boundary at Zerga Zaour, 55 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Kirkuk, was ambushed and "two peshmerga fighters were martyred", the authorities said.

They attributed the attack to IS "terrorists".

Saturday's violence came four days after another attack, also blamed on IS, which left 15 dead in a predominantly Shiite village in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala.

In 2017, Iraq declared victory over IS having recovered territory the group had controlled for three years.

But the Islamic extremists remain active and in July claimed an attack that killed about 30 people at a market in a Shiite part of Baghdad's Sadr City.