A suicide car bomber struck a security checkpoint near the city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, on Monday, killing two security members and wounding four others, a provincial police source said.

A suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into the checkpoint manned by Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the Kokajli area east of Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Nineveh province has been a stronghold of insurgent groups and al-Qaida fighters in the war-torn country. The province has been the scene of major security crackdowns by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces to uproot the insurgency which erupted shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.