Summary: Al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, said in an Internet video the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and taxpayers were paying the price. … Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has emerged as a nationalist strongman after reaching a status-of-forces agreement with the Bush administration requiring U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

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Summary: In an exodus that began after the 1991 Gulf War, and escalated dramatically after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has lost more than half its Christian population of some 1 million. … In the third such shooting in the Mosul area in less than a year, two U.S. troops were killed when a gunman in an Iraqi army uniform opened fire while they were distributing humanitarian aid in northern Iraq.

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Summary: A female suicide bomber blew herself up near an entrance to the U.S.-protected Green Zone and a bomb tore through a minibus carrying Iraqi government employees in separate attacks in Iraq, killing at least 20 people.

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Summary: Followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stomped on and burned an effigy of President George Bush in the same central Baghdad square where Iraqis beat a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their sandals five years earlier. Chanting and waving flags, thousands of Iraqis filled Firdous Square to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years.

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Summary: U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” on November 18, 2008, dismissed as an “urban legend” reports that she had said on an October 17, 2008 cable show with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that then-Sen. Barack Obama and other members of Congress “may have anti-American views” and that “the news media should do a penetrating exposé … and find out if they’re pro-America or anti-America.”

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Summary: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has offered to provide safe passage and security for the Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Omar, if he agrees to enter peace talks, and said the U.S. and other Western nations could leave the country or oust him if they disagree. Taliban militants later rejected the offer, saying there would be no negotiations until foreign troops leave Afghanistan.

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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: In the deadliest attack in Iraq in months, a suicide bomber struck a crowd that gathered where an explosion moments earlier had damaged a bus full of schoolgirls, killing at least 31 people and wounding 71. Meanwhile in Baqouba, a female suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint, killing five and wounding 15.

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Summary: Iraqi officials, who see President-elect Obama’s views on the timing of a U.S. withdrawal as consonant with their own, appear 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. … Iraqi and U.S. officials are concerned about a surge in “sticky bombs.” In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to stop the killing of civilians in coalition operations, which undermines popular support for the Afghan government and the international mission.

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