Summary: The political movement of Iraq’s best-known anti-American cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, is emerging as a major contender in the March 7, 2010 national elections, raising the specter that the next prime minister of Iraq could be openly hostile to the United States and friendly toward Iran. Further complicating the situation, Iraq’s main Sunni party has said it is dropping out of the elections. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 25, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that four U.S. soldiers and an Afghan civilian working for them were killed in southern Afghanistan when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, while in Iraq two policemen opened fire on U.S. soldiers visiting a police station, killing an American soldier and an Iraqi interpreter, wounding three Americans, and raising concerns about insurgent infiltration among the ranks of Iraqi police.

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Summary: A female suicide bomber walking among Shiite pilgrims in northern Baghdad detonated an explosives belt, killing at least 54 people and wounding around 117. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that three recent U.S. Special Forces operations in Afghanistan killed 50 people — the vast majority civilians, according to Afghan officials — raising the ire of villagers and President Hamid Karzai. The problem, Afghan officials say, comes when ordinary villagers hear the commotion of Special Forces nighttime raids and, fearing robbers or an attack from a hostile tribe, grab their guns and run outside or fire from their homes. U.S. forces then fire back and end up killing civilians.

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Summary: An unrepentant Tony Blair defended his decision to join the United States in attacking Iraq, invoking the discredited neocon argument before a panel investigating the war that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks made the threat of weapons of mass destruction impossible to ignore. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 29, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that suicide rates among active-duty U.S. military personnel continuing to rise even as the Defense Department dedicated more resources to identifying troubled service members and getting them the help they need. Preliminary figures confirmed at least 125 soldiers killed themselves in 2008, compared with 115 in 2007, 102 in 2006 and 87 in 2005.

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Summary: Three car bombs exploded near three Baghdad hotels popular with Western journalists, security contractors, and businessmen, killing at least 37 people and injuring more than 100. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 25, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported on the upcoming Jan. 31, 2009 provincial elections in Iraq — an important test of Iraq’s stability as the U.S. planned to begin withdrawing its troops.

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Summary: U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 compared with a year ago. A tally by The Associated Press shows 304 American service members had died as of Dec. 30, up from 151 in 2008. In contrast, U.S. deaths in Iraq dropped by half as troops largely remained on bases and the United States prepares to withdraw from that country by the end of 2011. There, 152 U.S. service members died, down from 314 a year earlier. … The Pakistani Taliban claims they used a turncoat CIA operative to carry out a suicide bombing that killed seven American CIA employees in Afghanistan as revenge for the death of former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile strike in August 2009. … A suicide bomber blew himself up in an SUV at an outdoor volleyball tournament in northwest Pakistan, killing 88 people in a village that opposes Taliban insurgents. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. military deaths in Iraq plummeted by two-thirds in 2008 from the previous year, while the war in Afghanistan saw American military deaths rise by 35 percent in 2008 as Islamic extremists shifted their focus to a new front with the West. The combined total of at least 465 U.S. deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan for 2008 was the lowest combined total for both wars since 2003, when the U.S. invaded Iraq.

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Summary: Afghans took to the streets to protest civilian casualties, chanting “Death to Obama, down with Karzai.” … Attacks in Afghanistan killed eight American civilians including CIA employees, four Canadian soldiers, and a Canadian journalist. … Coordinated explosions in Iraq killed 23 people and wounded an Iraqi provincial governor in the worst violence in months. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 31, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Michele Bachmann, Minnesota’s 6th District representative in Congress, made a strong showing in several “Year in Review” lists — no easy feat, considering the U.S. House of Representatives has 435 members, each vying for media attention.

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Summary: Iranian troops have crossed into Iraq and seized an oil well in a disputed area along the two countries’ southern border. Iraqi security forces were in the area, but there are no reports of any fighting or shots fired. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 18, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that at least 25 Iraqi interior ministry officials had been arrested, including several accused of planning a coup; that the Iraqi government accused U.S. forces of killing at least three Trade Ministry employees in a pre-dawn raid on ministry property in Baghdad; and that attackers shot and beheaded Nahla Hussein al-Shaly, 37, leader of the women’s league of the Kurdish Communist Party, reportedly because she promoted women’s rights in Iraq.

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Summary: A suicide car bomb in Baghdad flattened a court building and an explosives-rigged ambulance blew down walls like dominos near the Finance Ministry in a wave of coordinated attacks that targeted high-profile symbols of Iraqi authority, killing at least 127 people and wounding more than 500. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 8, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Taliban militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital U.S. military supply line.

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Summary: Similarities between George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and Barack Obama’s surge plan for Afghanistan belie the fact that there are few commonalities between the two war theaters. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 5, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that the number of terrorist attacks against police in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan had increased from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 in 2007, and that police are outgunned, out-financed, and fighting a losing battle against Taliban insurgents.

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Summary: Many soldiers and policy makers believe the conflict in Afghanistan may be harder and more intractable than the war in Iraq. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 28, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had said in an Internet video that the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and that taxpayers were paying the price; and that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as a nationalist strongman after reaching a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

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