Summary: In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, says much of the Taliban’s battlefield momentum has been halted, putting the U.S. on course to begin pulling out troops in July 2011 and shifting security responsibility to the Afghans. He cautioned, however, that security progress remains “fragile and reversible,” with tough days ahead as the Taliban launch an expected spring offensive. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar — second in the Taliban only to one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammed Omain — reportedly infuriated Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was said to have been holding secret peace talks with the Taliban’s No. 2 when he was captured in Pakistan the previous month, in February 2010.

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Summary: Rep. Michele Bachmann told political activists in Manchester, N.H., “You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.” But those first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired in Massachusetts, not New Hampshire. Bachmann’s mistake was striking given her roots in the Tea Party movement, which takes its name from the dumping of tea into Boston Harbor by angry American colonists in December 1773, 16 months before the Battle of Lexington Green. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 13, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann, addressing Tea Party activists, exploited U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan in an attempt to score some cheap political points by saying that passing the health reform bill would be a slam against the troops in Afghanistan and that the bill should be killed for the sake of the troops.

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Summary: A suicide bomber killed the police chief of the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz, an increasingly volatile area in a growing Taliban-led insurgency. And in Pakistan, the Taliban detonated a car bomb in Faisalabad, Pakistan’s third-largest city, killing 20 and wounding more than 100 people — underscoring the reach of al-Qaida and Taliban in the U.S.-allied nation. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 356-65, rejected a resolution by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (R-Ohio) to force withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2010.

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Summary: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited some of the most hotly contested parts of Afghanistan, where the effects of President Barack Obama’s 30,000-troop surge have been most keenly felt. While Gates expressed optimism, some observers believe U.S. gains in southern Afghanistan might prove illusory in the longer run. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: Criminal investigative analysis of the circumstances involving the dispearance of missing person Brandon Swanson of Marshall, Minnesota. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that despite bombings, mortar rounds, and grenades that claimed at least 36 lives, Iraqis voted on Sunday, March 7, 2010 in an election that will ultimately show whether Iraq can overcome the sectarian divisions that have defined it since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

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Summary: Heavy automatic weapons fire erupted in the Libyan capital Tripoli, the first such outbreak in Muammar Gaddafi’s main stronghold in a two-week-old insurrection against his 41-year-old rule as rebels advance from the east on Gadhafi’s hometown of Sirte. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that John Patrick Bedell, who opened fire at the Pentagon entrance and was killed in a shootout with Pentagon police, was fascinated with conspiracy theories, computer programming, libertarian economics, and the science of warfare.

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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. … Frankfurt airport shooting: Alleged gunman Arid Uka appears to fit the “puritanical compulsive” terrorist profile, similar to 9/11 hijack ringleader Mohamed Atta and CIA bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 4, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the suicide bomber behind the Dec. 30, 2009 attack on CIA Forward Operating Base Chapman in eastern Afghanistan, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, claimed in a posthumously released recording that he lured U.S. and Jordanian intelligence officers into a trap by sending them misleading information about terrorist targets as well as videotapes he had made of senior al-Qaeda leaders.

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Summary: CNN Headline News’s “Nancy Grace: America’s Missing” featured the 21-year-old Jacob Wetterling case on Monday, April 28, 2011 as part of its “50 People in 50 Days” series. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 2, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: Former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee falsely claimed on a radio talk show that President Barack Obama grew up in the African nation of Kenya. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 1, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), on yet another of her many out-of-state political appearances, spoke to Hamilton County Republicans in Cincinnati, Ohio, saying President Obama “has embraced a policy that would have the federal government controlling 48 percent of our economy in just two years’ time. We have to stop him.”

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Summary: Militants attacked and shut down Iraq’s largest oil refinery, at Beiji, killing four workers and setting off bombs that started a raging fire. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 27, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off the Chilean coast was racing across the Pacific Ocean, potentially threatening Hawaii.

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