The blasts targeting a police commander left his house in ruins [AFP]

At least 11 people have been killed after blasts ripped through the home of a senior Iraqi police commander in the northern city of Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein.

The attackers planted bombs and left a booby-trapped motorbike near the house of Lieutenant-Colonel Qais Farhan, commander of the emergency response unit of Tikrit, police major Dawood Sulaiman told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday.
 
He said four people were also wounded in the explosion, including Farhan. The dead included three children and four women, all of them relatives of the police commander.
 
The Associated Press (AP) news agency said the dead included Farhan's six-month-old nephew and the baby's parents.

Three other family members - Farhan's mother, brother and sister - also were killed, Colonel Khalid Jassim of the Tikrit police, said.
 
Police, soldiers and civil defence forces searched for victims under the rubble.

Meanwhile, in Samarra, 95km north of the capital, Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding two others, while in Baghdad two bombs planted in buses wounded 15 Iranian pilgrims, officials said.
 
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.
 
Meanwhile, an Iraqi military general said he will investigate his troops in connection with the alleged beating of two journalists a day earlier.
 
Two AP journalists were among those assaulted by Iraqi soldiers while trying to cover a Monday morning bombing that killed a Baghdad provincial council member.
 
An AP Television News cameraman had his foot broken while soldiers punched and kicked an AP photographer.