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Archive for August, 2011

Aug 21st, 2011

Summary: In Libya, rebels are advancing on the capital city of Tripoli as Moammar Gadhafi vows to fight until the bitter end. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 21, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Israel denounced Iran’s fueling up of its first nuclear power plant, in Bushehr, as “totally unacceptable” and called for more international pressure to force Tehran to cease any uranium enrichment.



Summary: In Afghanistan, Taliban suicide bombers stormed the British Council compound in an upscale Kabul neighborhood, killing at least eight people during an eight-hour firefight. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 20, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll a majority of Americans saw no end in sight in Afghanistan and nearly six in 10 opposed the then nine-year-old war.


Aug 19th, 2011

Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 19, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the last U.S. combat brigade in Iraq crossed the border into Kuwait, bringing to a close the active combat phase for Americans of a 7½-year war that overthrew Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush, and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead.



Summary: In the year since the United States formally ended its combat mission in Iraq, 57 American troops have died there, with June 2011 the deadliest month in Iraq since 2008, with the death of 15 service members. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 18, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a suicide bomber detonated nail-packed explosives strapped to his body among hundreds of army recruits, killing 61 and wounding 125, casting new doubt on the military capacity of Iraqi forces as U.S. troops began to head home.



Summary: The U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of the very people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade trying to defeat in Afghanistan: the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 17, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.



Summary: Militants attacked a fuel tanker depot outside Kandahar Air Field, the main international military base in southern Afghanistan, killing four four private security guards. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 16, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported on a campaign visit by Independence Party (IP) gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner to St. Cloud.


Aug 15th, 2011

Summary: Bomb blasts ripped through more than a dozen Iraqi cities in apparently coordinated attacks that killed more than 80 security forces and civilians and wounded at least 300. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman commemorated the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II with Japan’s surrender to the allied forces.


Aug 14th, 2011

Summary: Squeezed in between summer basketball and fall football, a final fishing excursion to Father Hennepin State Park on Mille Lacs Lake in Central Minnesota to close out the summer. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Sartell-Rice area in Central Minnesota had been hit by near-hurricane force straight-line winds.



Summary: The Pentagon has released the names of 30 U.S. service members killed Aug. 6, 2011 when a rocket-propelled grenade fired by a Taliban insurgent downed their Chinook helicopter on a combat mission — the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 13, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the number of civilians killed or wounded in the Afghanistan war rose 31 percent in the first six months of 2010, with anti-government forces causing about three-quarters of the casualties, according to a report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).


Aug 12th, 2011

Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 12, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari, commander of Iraq’s military, called for U.S. forces to stay in the country for another decade, reinforcing his stance that his country’s military won’t be able to secure the nation on their own after U.S. troops leave at the end of 2011.