Summary: Intelligence officials say foreign fighters have been slipping back into Iraq in larger numbers recently and may have been behind some of the most devastating attacks this year, reviving a threat the U.S. military believed had been almost entirely eradicated. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that 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.

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Summary: In a New York Times op-ed column, New York University journalism professor Charles Seife offers an interesting resolution to the tight U.S. Senate contest in Minnesota between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken: cast a lot to determine the winner by chance. … Iraq’s third-largest city, Mosul, faces economic and political problems that could unravel even if the military campaign succeeds.

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Summary: In Mosul, an Iraqi soldier fired automatic weapons at U.S. soldiers at a military base, killing two and wounding six before he died in a hail of bullets. … In Baghdad, bombers struck the capital for a third straight day, killing 23 people and wounding scores in a string of attacks in mostly Shiite areas. … In Kandahar, Afghanistan, a suicide bomber driving an oil tanker detonated his explosives outside an Afghan government office during a provincial council meeting, killing at least six people and wounding 42. … Iran test-fired a solid-fuel, high-speed Sajjil long-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles. … North Korea announced it will shut the country’s border with the South on Dec. 1, 2008.

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Summary: 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the pendulum in Mosul has swung several times between stark violence and fragile security, and 2008 is no different. Last November, when the American regiment arrived, the city’s western half was “entirely enemy territory,” with other areas not much better, says Maj. John Oliver, operations officer of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 3rd Squadron. … A series of blasts struck Baghdad for the third consecutive day, killing nine people and wounding more than 30 others. … Taliban fighters hijacked trucks carrying Humvees and other supplies for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, authorities said after a brazen attack near the Khyber Pass that underscored the militants’ grip across key mountain strongholds.

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Summary: On the seventh day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman reported that a new poll sponsored by Minnesota Public Radio and the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute mirrored the results of a SurveyUSA poll released the previous day by KSTP television: Support for Bachmann was holding steady a week after she became a lightning rod for national criticism and media attention when she told Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball” that Barack Obama “may have anti-American views” and the media should investigate which members of Congress “are pro-America or anti-America.”

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