Four deminers killed in Iraq blast

An explosive device left by the Islamic State group killed four members of a demining team Tuesday in a northern Iraqi town, the Kurdish regional government's demining organisation said.

Two people were also wounded by the blast in Zumar, which Kurdish forces recently retook from IS, a statement said.

The team had been were working to defuse the device, which was inside a building, when it exploded, spokesman Ako Aziz told AFP.

IS, which has overrun large areas of Iraq, frequently mines roads and rigs buildings with explosives to make it more difficult for security forces to attack and to inflict casualties even after an area is retaken.

Zumar is located some 60 kilometres (36 miles) northwest of Mosul, the first city to fall in an IS-led offensive in June.

Federal troops withdrew from Zumar and Kurdish peshmerga fighters moved in, but IS drove them out during a new campaign in August.

That helped to spark an US-led air campaign in Iraq that now involves several countries and has been expanded to Syria.

Kurdish forces have since regained some ground, but it has been slow going, and IS still holds significant areas in northern Iraq and elsewhere in the country, as well as neighbouring Syria.