Summary: More than eight years after the Taliban was toppled from power, the number of U.S. military fatalities in the war in Afghanistan is nearing 1,000, a grim milestone in a resurgent conflict that is claiming the lives of an increasing number of troops who had survived previous combat tours in Iraq. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 24, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that although the worst of the sectarian bloodshed and loss of American lives have ebbed in Iraq, U.S. service members continue to die in the 5-year war.

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Summary: The Taliban’s top military commander has been captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces. The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 17, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that North Korea marked the 67th birthday of its leader, Kim Jong Il, by claiming it had the right to “space development” — a term it has used in the past to disguise a missile test as a satellite launch.

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Summary: Bombs and booby traps slowed the advance of thousands of U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers moving through the Taliban-controlled town of Marjah — NATO’s most ambitious effort yet to break the militants’ grip over their southern Afghanistan heartland. NATO said two of its troops were killed on the first day of the operation — one American and one Briton. Afghan authorities said at least 20 insurgents were killed. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 13, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told a Senate panel that if the economic crisis lasted more than two years, it could cause serious damage to U.S. strategic and national security interests. “The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee, as Congress prepared to vote on a $789 billion stimulus package.

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Summary: U.S. Marines fired smoke rounds and armored vehicles maneuvered close to Taliban positions to test insurgent defenses ahead of an anticipated attack on Marjah, the biggest militant-controlled town in southern Afghanistan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 10, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported a new poll showing plummeting support among the Afghan people for the Kabul government and U.S. and European troops trying to bolster it against the Taliban insurgency.

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Summary: The U.S. is preparing a major attack on the Taliban, the militants are being squeezed in their Pakistani sanctuaries, and the Afghan government is trying to draw them into peace talks. … NATO is sending reinforcements to Kandahar, 260 miles southwest of Kabul, ahead of a major offensive to reverse Taliban gains in southern Afghanistan. … Suicide bomb kills 6 in Afghan south. A bomb on a parked motorcycle exploded on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 20 Shiite pilgrims and wounding 110. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that with the reduction of violence in Iraq following a U.S. troop “surge” and other measures, foreign militants were flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops. He also reported that Father Bruce Wollmering OSB, monk and priest, died suddenly on February 4, 2009 at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. Subsequently, on December 9, 2009, it was reported that former student Jeramiah (Jerry) McCarthy had filed a fraud lawsuit against St. John’s Prep School and Abbey for allegedly covering up sexual misconduct by Fr. Bruce Wollmering since the mid-1960s.

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Summary: U.S. Special Forces working with Afghan commandos clashed with Afghan troops manning a snow-covered outpost and called in an airstrike, killing four Afghan soldiers, U.S. and Afghan officials said. Both sides called the clash a case of mistaken identity. Separately, an Afghan interpreter killed two U.S. service members at a combat outpost and U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan imam when his car approached a convoy. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 31, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq imposed a nationwide security lockdown before key regional elections with blanket measures not seen since the deadliest years of the insurgency, underscoring the high stakes for Iraqi leaders desperate to portray stability after nearly six years of conflict prompted by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

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Summary: The death of two U.S. soldiers in southern Afghanistan has brought to at least 22 the number of American service members killed so far this month — compared with only 14 for the whole of January 2009. … In Pakistan, militants ambushed Pakistani security forces at checkpoints in two regions close to the Afghan border, sparking gunbattles that left 22 insurgents and two troops dead. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 23, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a U.S. Army probe into suicides among Houston-based recruiters, all veterans of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, said medical problems factored in the deaths but none had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

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Summary: NATO releases video of a complex Taliban attack on the Presidential Palace and other government buildings in the heart of Kabul, Afghanistan, January 18, 2010. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 22, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that former Congressman Joe Scarborough, speaking as “a good Republican,” responded to the inauguration of Barack Obama by saying, “I’m damn proud to be a part of this great republic.”

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Summary: In the biggest attack in months, Taliban militants struck in the heart of the Afghan capital of Kabul, launching suicide attacks at key government targets in a clear sign the insurgents plan to escalate their fight as the U.S. and its allies ramp up their own campaign to end the war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 19, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President George W. Bush presided over the weakest eight-year span for the U.S. economy in decades, according to an analysis of key data, with economists across the ideological spectrum increasingly viewing his two terms as a time of little progress on the nation’s thorniest fiscal challenges. Specifically, the number of jobs in the nation increased by about 2 percent during Bush’s tenure, the most tepid growth over any eight-year span since data collection began seven decades ago. Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, grew at the slowest pace for a period of that length since the Truman administration. And Americans’ incomes grew more slowly than in any presidency since the 1960s, other than that of Bush’s father George H. W. Bush.

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Summary: Six NATO service members, including three Americans, have been killed in Afghanistan, making it the deadliest day for the international force in more than two months. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 11, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that President George W. Bush in 2008 rejected a plea from Israel to help it raid Iran’s main nuclear complex, opting instead to authorize a new U.S. covert action aimed at sabotaging Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program, according to the New York Times.

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