The incident took place when a roadside bomb detonated near an Iraqi army force while conducting a search operation to hunt down IS remnants in al-Tarmiyah area, some 30 km north of Baghdad, the media office of the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

The explosion was followed by a heavy clash between the troops and the extremist militants hiding in a nearby orchard, the statement added.

The incident resulted in the killing of three IS militants and four soldiers and the wounding of four others, the statement 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.