Summary: Afghanistan’s fighting season will begin in full force by the end of April — and with it, a chance to measure the success of NATO’s efforts to turn back the Taliban. The extent to which the Taliban return to the fight will also help determine whether the surge of more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops that President Obama announced in December 2009 succeeded in arresting the insurgency. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 16, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported a New York Times/CBS News poll that found the 18 percent of Americans who identified themselves as Tea Party supporters were wealthier and more well-educated than the general public and tended to be Republican, white, male, and married.

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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 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Sen. John McCain said the United States had been backing away from a brewing fight with Iran, even as that country moved ever closer to having nuclear weapons.

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Summary: Rep. Michele Bachmann, in an address to The Family Leader — a conservative Iowa group — made many controversial statements, including the debunked claim that Planned Parenthood “wants to be the LensCrafters of Big Abortion” and falsely claiming that Al Franken “stole” Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election. But Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert keyed in on statements about same-sex marriage as Bachmann tried to prove her “anti-gay street cred” with social conservatives. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that GOP activist Luke Hellier, in an apparent attempt to taint the reputation of Michele Bachmann’s Republican challenger, Aubrey Immelman, posted a misleading report on the website “Minnesota Democrats Exposed.”

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Summary: A U.S. Marine reservist, Staff Sgt. Jeremy Smith, and a Navy corpsman, Seaman Benjamin Rast, were killed by a Hellfire missile fired from a U.S. Air Force Predator drone in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan — an apparent case of mistaken identity. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 13, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: In a slow-starting 2012 Republican presidential field that lacks star power, Michele Bachmann is carving out a role as the polarizing Tea Party favorite with a dynamic, take-no-prisoners style. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 12, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. troops opened fire on a bus carrying Afghan civilians, killing five people and setting off anti-American protests in Kandahar, where coalition forces hope to rally the public for a coming offensive against the Taliban.

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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: After voting against legislation to keep the government running, Rep. Michele Bachmann — somewhat hypocritically, considering she has also proposed freezing military veterans’ health care funding and cutting their disability benefits — said she would introduce legislation that would prevent troops from being “used as pawns in political negotiations.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Army Reserve Sgt. Kurt Kruize arrived home for the last time. Sgt. Kruize is the first St. Cloud soldier to die in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the third in Central Minnesota. Staff Sgt. Brian Hellermann of Freeport died in 2003 and Cpl. Anthony McElveen of Little Falls was killed in Iraq in 2005.

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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: 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 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Taliban released a video of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, an American soldier captured in Afghanistan in June 2009, showing him pleading for his freedom and to be returned home.

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Summary: Army Gen. Carter Ham, the former U.S. commander of the military mission in Libya, describes the ongoing operation as a stalemate that is more likely to go on now that America has handed control to NATO, adding that the U.S. may consider sending troops into Libya with a possible international ground force that could aid the rebels. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on April 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman announced a second challenge to incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann for her U.S. House of Representatives seat in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, on a platform of national security, law and order, fiscal responsibility, and uncompromising opposition to political extremism.

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