BAGHDAD, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- At least a woman was killed and three security members were wounded on Tuesday in a car bomb explosion in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk, the Iraqi military said.

"The explosion took place at a security checkpoint on the main road in the south of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad," the media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command (JOC) said in a statement.

The blast resulted in the killing of a woman and the wounding of three security members, the JOC said, citing initial reports about the incident.

The security situation in Iraq was dramatically improved after the Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist Islamic State (IS) militants across the country late in 2017, but sporadic attacks occurred in the war-ravaged country.