Baghdad, Nov 29 (IANS): Five Kurdish security members known as Peshmerga were killed in an overnight attack by the militants of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group in northeastern Iraq, a Kurdish security source has said.

Azad al-Dalawi, an officer from the Peshmerga, said a group of IS militants attacked late on Saturday evening a Kurdish security base in the Kolajo area in the northern part of Diyala province, sparking a fierce clash between the two sides that lasted until dawn on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Peshmerga soldiers finally managed to repel the assailants, said al-Dalawi.

The clash resulted in the killing of five Peshmerga members and the wounding of five others, along with the destruction of a military vehicle, he added.

He said reinforcements from the Kurdish forces arrived at the scene and launched a search campaign in the area looking for IS militants.

The security situation in Iraq has been improving since the Iraqi forces defeated IS in 2017. However, IS remnants have since melted into urban centers, deserts and rugged areas, carrying out frequent guerilla attacks against security forces and civilians.