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Archive for April, 2011

Apr 30th, 2011

Summary: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi has survived a NATO missile strike that reportedly killed his youngest son Saif al-Arab Gadhafi and three grandchildren. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 30, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil a day was spewing from the blown-out well at the site of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig, which exploded April 20, 2010 and sank two days later.


Apr 29th, 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 April 29, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. troops raided the home of a female member of the Afghan parliament and killed a neighbor who was one of her relatives, sparking angry protests.


Apr 28th, 2011

Summary: The White House produced a copy of President Barack Obama’s detailed Hawaii birth certificate after obtaining a special waiver from the state to make it public. Recent polling had shown two-thirds of Republicans (and smaller percentages of independents and Democrats) believing Obama was born overseas or voicing uncertainty about his place of birth — and celebrity developer Donald Trump, who had taken the lead in sowing doubts about Obama’s birth, was gaining a following as he flirted with a Republican presidential bid. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 28, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that an increase in terrorist attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan triggered a sharp rise in the number of civilians killed or wounded there in 2009, pushing South Asia past the Middle East as the top terror region in the world, according to figures compiled by National Counterterrorism Center.


Apr 27th, 2011

Summary: Eight American troops and a U.S. contractor died after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting at Kabul airport — the deadliest episode to date of an Afghan turning against his coalition partners. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 27, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Apr 26th, 2011

Summary: An April 13 NATO airstrike in the Dangam district of eastern Kunar province killed Abu Hafs al-Najdi, AKA Abdul Ghania, a key al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan. Ghani was a regional commander in charge of suicide bombings and cash flow. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 26, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a review panel invalidated votes cast for 52 candidates in Iraq’s election, throwing into doubt the slim lead of former prime minister Iyad Allawi’s cross-sectarian, Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance over Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition and setting the stage for a possible spike in sectarian violence.


Apr 25th, 2011

Summary: The State Department is telling American citizens to leave Syria as soon as they can and ordered some personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus to depart the country, as the Syrian government steps up a brutal crackdown against pro-reform demonstrators. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 25, 2010, Aubrey Immelman suggested that reports of Afghan schoolgirls “knocked unconscious” or made ill by suspected Taliban poison gas attacks on their schools should be investigated as possible cases of mass hysteria (mass psychogenic illness).


Apr 24th, 2011

Summary: “Urbi et Orbi” — Pope Benedict XVI offered an Easter prayer from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica for diplomacy to prevail over warfare in Libya and for citizens of the Middle East to build a new society based on respect. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 24, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that an explosion that killed an American and an Afghan soldier on a military base in Kabul on April 19, 2010 was carried out by a suicide bomber, the second time in five months an insurgent had managed to infiltrate a base.


Apr 23rd, 2011

Summary: Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann has been named to Time magazine’s 2011 list of 100 “most influential” people. Rush Limbaugh wrote the citation and Aubrey Immelman offers perspective. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 23, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ignored criticism from President Barack Obama and signed into law a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.


Apr 22nd, 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 April 22, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that months after Pakistani troops chased them from South Waziristan, Taliban and al-Qaida fighters had regrouped and established a new base of operations in North Waziristan near the Afghan border under the protection of insurgent leader Gul Bahadur, who in the past had cut deals with the Pakistani army.


Apr 21st, 2011

Summary: As the Taliban spring offensive heats up in Afghanistan, here’s a quick guide to 12 of the most-hunted insurgent commanders on the front lines in the AfPak war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 21, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the two top-ranking leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri, were killed in a joint U.S.-Iraqi operation on Sunday, April 18, 2010, in what Vice President Joe Biden called a “potentially devastating blow” to the terrorist operation.