A suicide bomb attack targeted the police chief of Nineveh province in its capital city of Mosul, on Thursday, killing him and a bodyguard and wounding five others, a senior provincial police source said.

"Brigadier General Salih Muhammad Hasan, police chief of Nineveh province, died from fatal wounds sustained when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vest near Hasan's convoy," Brigadier Said al-Jubouri, head of the provincial police media office, told Xinhua by telephone.

Hasan was touring the site of Wednesday's huge blast at a three- story building in the Zanjili area in Mosul that claimed the lives of 15 people and wounding 141 others, according to the latest police reports.

Earlier, police reports put the toll at 14 dead and 114 wounded.

Local authorities imposed curfew on the city of Mosul starting from Thursday midday until further notice, Jubouri said.

(Xinhua News Agency January 25, 2008)