Summary: A Somali-born teenager, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, Oregon, but the bomb turned out to be a dummy supplied by undercover agents as part of a counterterrorism sting operation. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 27, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, testified before an inquiry into the Iraq war that the Bush administration was “hell bent” on the 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war.

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Summary: An independent 25-member task force led by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and former national security adviser Samuel Berger is cautioning President Barack Obama about the high cost of the Afghanistan war and suggests the United States should downsize its ambitions and reduce its military presence in Afghanistan if Obama’s December 2010 Afghanistan policy review finds the current strategy is not working. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 13, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that morale had fallen among soldiers in Afghanistan, while those in Iraq showed much improved mental health amid lower violence. There were 133 reported active-duty Army suicides from January 2009 through October 2009, compared with 115 for the same period in 2008.

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Summary: The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, has threatened more attacks on Christians after a siege on a Baghdad Catholic church left 68 people dead. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 3, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Summary: At least 58 Iraqi Catholics died and more than 70 were wounded when police stormed a Baghdad church where gunmen were holding dozens of parishioners hostage, threatening to kill them if al-Qaida-prisoners were not released. Since the war began, Iraq has lost half of its 1.5 million Christians. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 31, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Microsoft Network (MSN.com), promoting its new Bing! search engine, featured a demo search of “angry Americans.” It caught my attention, because history has shown that times of economic uncertainty — as we’re currently experiencing while bogged down in two wars in the aftermath of 9/11 — can be a fertile breeding ground for extremist ideologies, as we saw in Germany during the Great Depression following a humiliating defeat in World War I.

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Summary: Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden threatens in a new audiotape to kill French citizens to avenge France’s support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and a new law that will ban face-covering Muslim veils. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 27, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Summary: An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency documents a litany of intelligence breakdowns leading to the Dec. 30, 2009 suicide attack in Afghanistan by Jordanian double agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi that killed seven CIA employees. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 20, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Summary: Members of Afghanistan’s new peace council say releasing Taliban figures detained at Guantanamo Bay and scratching scores of others off the U.N. sanctions list would jump-start peace talks aimed at ending the 9-year-old war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 12, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann told bloggers at an event in Washington: “Quite honestly I don’t even know anything about MSNBC.” To refresh Bachmann’s memory, MSNBC is the cable network on which she dishonored her office on October 17, 2008, when she called for McCarthy-like witch hunts to find out which members of Congress are “pro-America or anti-America.”

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Summary: Analysis on the 9th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 7, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided news and analysis on the 9th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, destroy al-Qaida, and kill or capture Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the terrorist organization.

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Summary: Pakistan’s shutting of a key supply line for coalition troops in Afghanistan and the apparent ease with which militants are attacking the stranded convoys are shaking an already uncomfortable relationship between Washington and Islamabad. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 4, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that hundreds of insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades nearly overran a U.S. outpost near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, killing eight U.S. soldiers and capturing more than 20 Afghan security forces in the deadliest assault against U.S. troops in more than a year.

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Summary: As terror groups move away from planning complex 9/11-style attacks, involving months of planning and a large group of participants, it’s more difficult to detect and disrupt plots against the United States, according to three of the nation’s top counterterrorism officials. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on September 22, 2009, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan and reported that Al-Qaida marked the 8th anniversary of 9/11 with a new 106-minute video predicting President Barack Obama’s downfall.

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