Summary: Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical, anti-American Muslim cleric whose Mahdi Army militia once fought U.S. occupation forces in Iraq positioned himself as a big winner in Iraq’s months-long political deadlock when his Sadrist party threw its support behind beleaguered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 1, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported on the inauguration of Fr. Robert J. Koopmann, OSB, as the 12th president of St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota.

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Summary: Iraq’s political disarray has deepened, with potential kingmaker Muqtada al-Sadr withholding his support from the two biggest election winners — the blocs of Ayad Allawi and Nouri al-Maliki — and saying he would ask his supporters to make their choice in a referendum. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 31, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Baitullah Mehsud, commander of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for a deadly assault on a Pakistani police academy and said the group was planning a terrorist attack on the White House that would “amaze” the world.

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Summary: Emboldened by the prospect of an Iraq free of the U.S. military and by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s decision to join a Shiite-led alliance that may become the single largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament after the 2010 election, ex-Mahdi Army militia members are starting to return ahead of Sunday’s elections. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 6, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that a car bomb exploded in a livestock market in Iraq’s southern Babil province, killing 12 people, wounding 40, and shattering a peace that had held in the area for some time, while insurgents attacked a main U.S.-Iraqi base in the northern city of Mosul, killing one American soldier and striking directly at the Iraqi command center for an offensive against the militants.

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