Summary: Few Americans took notice as yet another incident in an unending cascade of violence marred post-Saddam Iraq. The blast outside the Diwaniya governor’s house killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 30. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 20, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that suicide bombers in a crowded Baghdad commercial district and in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit killed at least 33 people as insurgents tried to turn a monthslong deadlock over forming a new Iraqi government to their advantage.

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Summary: Five U.S. troops are killed in a rocket attack on a base in Baghdad, the single largest loss of life for the American military in Iraq in more than two years. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that bombings in Baghdad, Iraq and Kandahar, Afghanistan killed seven people — including policemen in both countries — and wounded about two dozen.

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Summary: In the second significant attack in Iraq since the death of Osama bin Laden, a suicide car bomber crashed his vehicle into a barrier outside a police building in Hillah, Iraq, killing 20 policemen and wounding dozens more. Two days earlier a car bomb tore through a cafe in Baghdad packed with young men watching a soccer match on TV, killing at least 16 people. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on May 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq’s two largest Shiite electoral blocs announced they had formed an alliance, giving them a strong chance of forming the next government, heavily supported by neighboring Iran.

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Summary: Suicide bombers detonated two explosives-packed cars outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, killing at least nine people and wounding 23. Separately, hours after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with U.S. House Speaker John Boehner telling him Iraq’s security forces can protect the country after the planned withdrawal of 46,000 U.S. troops by the end of 2011, gunmen stormed the home of a Shiite family living in a mostly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad and killed all four family members, including two children. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 18, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Taliban were moving fighters into Kandahar, planting bombs, and plotting attacks as NATO and Afghan forces prepare for a summer offensive.

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Summary: Iraq’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, says his country’s security forces are ready to protect Middle East leaders who will attend the Arab League summit in May 2011, even as bombings and shootings across Iraq killed 20 people, including four policemen. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Sarah Palin criticized Barack Obama’s foreign policy on the eve of the president’s nuclear counterproliferation summit focused on keeping nukes out of the hands of terrorists.

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Summary: Powerful anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatens to reactivate his feared Mahdi Army militia if American soldiers remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2011, after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates offered on behalf of the Obama administration to keep American troops in Iraq if needed. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the White House issued a warning that al-Qaida was quietly hunting for an atomic bomb, adding urgency to a historic summit where President Barack Obama aimed to persuade world leaders to step up their efforts to keep nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.

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Summary: Gunmen wearing military uniforms over explosives belts held a Tikrit, Iraq government center hostage in a grisly siege that ended with the deaths of at least 56 people, including three Salahuddin province councilmen who were executed with gunshots to the head and set fire. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 29, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that nine alleged members of a Midwest Christian militia group, the Hutaree, had been charged with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral, with the intent of inciting an uprising against the U.S. government.

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Summary: A roadside bomb killed six people and wounded 12 in the oil-rich city of Basra in southern Iraq after reportedly missing a passing U.S. Army patrol. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that former Mahdi Army militia members, emboldened by the prospect of an Iraq free of the U.S. military and by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s decision to join a Shiite-led alliance expected to become the single largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament after the 2010 election, were reemerging ahead of the national elections.

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Summary: Militants attacked and shut down Iraq’s largest oil refinery, at Beiji, killing four workers and setting off bombs that started a raging fire. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 27, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the Chilean coast was racing across the Pacific Ocean, potentially threatening Hawaii.

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Summary: Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets that “the odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq — invading, pacifying, and administering a large third-world country — may be low” and that “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa” should, in the words of General Douglas MacArthur, “have his head examined.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 26, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that insurgents had struck in the heart of the Afghan capital with suicide attackers and a car bomb, targeting hotels used by foreigners and killing at least 16 people and wounding dozen. The four-hour assault began about 6:30 in the morning with a car bombing that leveled a residential hotel used by Indian doctors. A series of explosions and gunbattles left blood and debris in the rain-slicked streets and underscored the militants’ ability to strike in the heavily defended capital even as NATO marshals its forces against them in an assault on Marjah in the volatile south.

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