Multiple suicide bombers struck in predominantly Shiite markets in Baghdad and in a town north of the capital, killing at least 104 people and wounding scores on Thursday — the day that new US Ambassador Ryan Crocker took office.

As people flocked Saturday to a hospital in a Shiite Muslim district of the capital to visit loved ones injured in recent attacks, a car bomb tore through the crowd of well-wishers, killing five people and wounding two dozen others.

The real deadline for Congress to provide more money for the war in Iraq is well beyond the April 15 deadline cited by President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Iraq’s government has endorsed plans to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein’s campaign to force ethnic Kurds out of the oil-rich city, in an effort to undo one of the former dictator’s most enduring and hated policies.

Iran’s foreign ministry, in reaction to the Friday statement of the EU’s ministerial meeting in Bremen, Germany, warned the European Union against interference in Iran-Britain bilateral issues.

Chief of Staff of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s armed forces, Major General Seyed Hassan Firooz Abadi warned Muslim leaders of Palestine’s neighboring countries about implementation of a suicidal plan by the Zionist regime of Israel.

Iran’s embassy in Athens in a statement released on Saturday condemned trespassing of Iran’s territorial waters by the British troops, reiterating that the responsibility of the measure lies on the British government.

An Iranian lawmaker said that his country cannot ignore Britain’s hostile measures taken against the Islamic Republic, and further called for the trial of the 15 British marines who had trespassed Iran’s territorial waters.

Head of Thailand’s National Security Council, in a meeting with Iranian ambassador to Bangkok Mohsen Pak Ayeen on Thursday, said his country attaches much significance and value to its ties with Iran, and further voiced pleasure in the expanding relations between the two states.

 Following Iranians’ wide scale reaction to a film recently produced by Warner Brothers Studio titled ‘300’, the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Bangkok issued a statement to voice its strong protest against the distorted nature of the movie.