Baghdad, Dec 17 (IANS): Two oil wells in Iraq's Kirkuk province were set ablaze by Islamic State (IS) terrorists, said Minister of Oil Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail, adding that the fires have been successfully extinguished.

The Iraqi oil companies have managed "to extinguish the fires in the two wells of Khubbaz oilfield in Kirkuk province at an unprecedented time" on Wednesday, Xinhua news agency quoted Ismail as saying in a letter sent to Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.

In his letter, Ismail praised the efforts of the employees of the Iraqi North Oil Company and the national oil companies that support extinguishing the oil wells, stressing that "this is the appropriate response to terrorism that targets the national oil wealth".

On December 9, a source from the North Oil Company told Xinhua that IS militants had planted two bombs in the Khubbaz oilfield, some 250 km north of Iraqi capital Baghdad, and blew them up causing huge fires in the two wells.

Iraq's oil installations and pipelines have been frequently attacked by extremist IS militants despite the improvement of the security situation in the country after the government declared the full defeat of terror group throughout the country late in 2017.