A total of five people, including four civilians and a policeman, were killed on Tuesday in an attack by the IS militants at a village near Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk.

The extremists early in the morning stormed the village of Chragh near the town of Debis, some 40 km west of Kirkuk, and shot dead a policeman, the cleric of the local mosque and three civilians, Xinhua reported.

The attackers had fled before Iraqi security forces arrived at the village, a source said.

Iraqi security forces have liberated Iraq’s second largest city of Mosul, but the rural areas near the town of Hawijah in west of Kirkuk, the town of Tal Afar in west of Mosul, the sprawling rugged area in the eastern part of Salahudin province and the areas near the border with neighbouring Syria are still under IS control.

On July 10, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally declared the liberation of Mosul from IS after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.