Summary: A suicide bomber blew himself up in a market in northwest Pakistan, killing 12 people, including a mayor who had turned against the Taliban; two U.S. pilots have been killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq; Iraq’s parliament has passed a long-delayed law, setting the stage for nationwide elections in January 2010. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 8, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraqi officials, who saw President-elect Obama’s views on the timing of a U.S. withdrawal as consonant with their own, appeared to be leveraging his election to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions in negotiations to reach a status-of-forces agreement with the United States; that Iraqi and U.S. officials were concerned about a surge in “sticky bombs”; and that Afghan president Hamid Karzai urged U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to stop the killing of civilians in coalition operations, which he said undermines popular support for the Afghan government and the international mission.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases. … With 52 U.S. troops killed, August 2009 became the deadliest month of the deadliest year yet in the Afghanistan war. … The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has called for a new strategy against the Taliban in an assessment of the 8-year-old conflict ordered by the U.S. Secretary of Defense. … The number of civilians killed in Iraq shot up to 393 in August 2009, the highest level since April, after a spate of mass-casualty bombings caused carnage in Baghdad and northern Iraq. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 49th day of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman visited the St. Stephen Parish Festival with his four children. Afterwards, he made a detour through Rice on the way home to Sartell, for an update on shoreline restoration and water quality issues on Little Rock Lake in Benton County. He also posted updates on Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall as a Category 2 storm near Cocodrie, La.

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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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