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59 killed, 120 injured in Iraq bombings

* Bush threatened nations not voting for UN resolution backing Iraq war * Pentagon seeks $190bn to fund Iraq, Afghanistan war in 2008

BAGHDAD: Bomb attacks killed 59 people and wounded more than 120 across Iraq on Wednesday when suspected Al Qaeda militants stepped up a campaign of violence coinciding with the holy month of Ramazan.
In a mainly Shia district of southwest Baghdad, twin car bombs killed 32 people in one of the biggest attacks to hit the Iraqi capital in weeks.
The bombs detonated shortly before dusk when most people were preparing for the evening meal to break their daylong fast.
In northern Iraq a suicide bomber killed 10 people on Wednesday and wounded nine when he struck at the home of a tribal leader opposed to Al Qaeda near the town of Sinjar.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Iraq had made some progress on security but added, “We have a long way to achieve our goals for a secure, stable and prosperous Iraq.”
The United States has blamed Tehran for stoking much for the violence that has bedevilled Iraq following the toppling of Saddam Hussein by a US-led invasion forces in 2003.
Mosul blasts: Police said three car bombs in Mosul and three others in northern Iraq killed 13 people and wounded more than 50.
In the south, a roadside bomb outside a Sunni mosque in the town of Abi Khasib, eight km south of Basra, killed four people, police and a Sunni political party said.
US wrath on non-supportive nations: US President George W Bush threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN resolution backing the Iraq war, according to a transcript published Wednesday of a conversation he had with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.
In the transcript of a meeting on February 22, 2003 — a month before the US-led invasion of Iraq — published in El Pais newspaper, Bush tells Aznar that nations such as Mexico, Angola, Chile and Cameroon must know that the security of the United States is at stake.e.
More funds for Iraq, Afghanistan war: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is seeking nearly 190 billion dollars to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008, the largest war funding request ever in the six-year-old ‘war on terror’, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Gates was scheduled to testify later before a Senate committee on the request, which was 42.3 billion dollars greater than the administration’s estimate when it presented its 2008 budget request in February. agencies

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