flatbed truck killing at least 32 and injuring 24. This latest violence occurred just one day after Baghdad hosted a conference on security, attended by the US, Syria and Iran. March 16 – Three suicide truck bombers detonated their chlorine-laden vehicles in Al Anbar province, killing two policemen and leaving 350 civilians and six US soldiers sick from poisoning. March 22 – Insurgents attempt to assassinate United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his visit in Baghdad. The rocket attack caused no injuries but rattled the heavily guarded Green Zone. It struck right after Prime Minister al-Maliki, standing next to Ban, had finished telling reporters that Ban's visit was a sign that Iraq was on the road to stability. March 27 – Insurgents have blown up two trucks in the Iraqi town of Talafar, killing 85 people and injuring 183. It was one of the largest attacks in Talafar since US President George Bush used the town to illustrate progress in Iraq. March 28 – Gunmen are reported to have killed at least 70 Sunni men in the north-western Iraqi border town of Talafar, in reprisal for the forementioned bombings on March 27. March 29 – A series of deadly bomb attacks kills more than 100 people in Shia areas of Baghdad and the town of Khalis. Earlier, more than 40 people died and 80 were injured in three co-ordinated blasts in Khalis. The US Congress passed supplemental funding authorization bills to pay $122 billion for emergency war operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, including requirements that the US withdraw its troops from Iraq by August 2008. Bush threatened to veto any bill including such a withdraw provision. March 30 – The United States Senate approved on March 30, 2007 the goal, not a requirement, of getting all combat soldiers out by March 31, 2008. April April 1 – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says the Shia militia known as the Mehdi Army has stopped its activities on the orders of its leader, Moqtada al-Sadr. April 3 – Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for George W. Bush's re-election campaign in 2004, told The New York Times that his son was about to be deployed to Iraq, and partly for that reason he now opposed U.S. policy there and backs a withdrawal. Bush dismissed Dowd's opinion in an April press conference, calling him "obviously intensified" and "emotional". April 7 - Du'a Khalil Aswad, a Yazidi