Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq    

A man walks outside a house destroyed in a suicide bomb attack in northern Baghdad's Shaab district June 4, 2008. The suicide bomber drove a truck towards the house of police Brigadier-General Nadhim Taeih, in northern Baghdad, killing at least 13 people and wounding 52, police said. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    BAGHDAD, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a truck bomb explosion targeting the house of a deputy chief police in eastern Baghdad on Wednesday rose to 12 with some 50 others injured, an Interior Ministry source said.

    "The latest reports said that up to 12 people were killed and some 50 others wounded by the truck bombing," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

    Earlier, the source put the toll at five killed and ten others wounded.

    "A booby-trapped truck went off in the afternoon near the house of Brigadier Nadhem Taieh, a deputy chief police in the interior ministry, in the al-Sha'ab neighborhood," he said.

    The source confirmed to Xinhua that Taieh was not in the house during the attack, which badly damaged eight houses, including that of Taieh's.

    Separately, the source told Xinhua that Col. Dhafir Ghanim, Inspector General in the Interior Ministry, was shot dead on Tuesday night by unknown gunmen in his house in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Ghadeer.

    The areas where the incidents took place are Shiite dominated neighborhoods which recently witnessed clashes between U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces and militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.