The men died in the early hours of this morning, according to security and medical sources. The attack was centred on the Al-Rashad region, roughly 65 kilometres (40 miles) south of the city, a senior Iraqi police officer said.
The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Members of the ISIS organisation targeted a federal police checkpoint.
“Thirteen were killed and three wounded.”
A separate medical source based in Kirkuk said the figure was accurate.
So far nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack but ISIS is know to be active in the area.
The attackers first engaged in a military confrontation with police officers that lasted about two hours, killing three officers.
Reporting from Baghdad, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Abdelwahed said attackers first provoked a confrontation with police which lasted about two hours, during which three officers were killed.
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ISIS seized control of large areas of Iraq in 2014, but was pushed back by a US-led counter-offensive.
The Iraqi government claimed the Sunni extremists had been defeated towards the end of 2017, but they retain sleeper cells which continue to hit security forces with asymmetric attacks.
Jihadists regularly attack both the Iraqi army and police in the north of the country.
However, the latest incident is one of the most deadly to occur this year so far.
On July 19, ISIS claimed a bomb attack that killed 30 people in the Al-Woheilat market in Sadr City, a Shiite suburb of Baghdad.
International coalition troops in Iraq number roughly 3,500 – 2,500 of which are US troops.
However, Washington has said that from next year the role of US troops will be limited to training and advising Iraqi counterparts.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited Iraqi Kurdistan last week, voicing his concern about an ISIS “resurgence” in both Iraq and Syria.
Mr Macron stated that French soldiers deployed in Iraq as part of the international coalition will stay “no matter what choices the Americans make”.