Summary: Federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq have significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program.

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Summary: In the deadliest attack in Iraq so far this year, a female suicide bomber struck a tent filled with women and children resting during a pilgrimage south of Baghdad, killing 40 people and wounding about 80 in the deadliest of three straight days of attacks against Shiite worshippers.

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Summary: In Afghanistan, Taliban militants killed 20 people in a coordinated attack on three government buildings in Kabul, launching the assault after sending text messages to the leader of their terrorism cell in Pakistan. … In Iraq, 16 people were killed and 45 wounded when twin car bombs exploded at a bus terminal and market area in southwestern Baghdad.

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Summary: Defense contractor KBR Inc. has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work, even as it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The announcement of the new KBR contract came just months after the Pentagon rejected the company’s explanation of serious mistakes in Iraq and its proposed improvements.

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Summary: With the reduction of violence in Iraq following a U.S. troop “surge” and other measures, foreign militants are now flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops, according to Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak.

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Summary: A classified Pentagon report urges President Barack Obama to shift U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, de-emphasizing democracy-building and concentrating more on targeting Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuaries inside Pakistan with the aid of Pakistani military forces.

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Summary: Why North Korea could become one of President Obama’s most vexing foreign-policy challenges: For the moment, the Obama White House has bigger priorities than North Korea. Still, the new U.S. president would do well to keep in mind that Pyongyang is continuing to tweak its nuclear-weapons program. It already has an arsenal of ballistic missiles capable of hitting all of Japan and potentially parts of the United States. For all its paranoia, North Korea insists it’s still under the threat of “American and Japanese imperialists,” and says that it has every right to possess a “nuclear deterrent” to defend itself. Appeasing them with money and oil won’t be enough.

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Summary: The message from Washington to Pakistan is clear: There is no change in U.S. policy when it comes to going after al-Qaida and Taliban targets in Pakistan’s lawless border areas. After all, Barack Obama warned during his presidential campaign that America must go after terrorist targets if Pakistan did not act first.

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Summary: Counterterrorism officials and the FBI are investigating whether al-Shabab or other Somali Islamic groups are actively recruiting in the United States. Officials say as many as 20 Somali-Americans between the ages of 17 and 27 have left their Minneapolis homes since 2007, apparently bound for Somalia.

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Summary: Iraqis vote Jan. 31, 2009 in the first nationwide election in three years, choosing provincial leaders in what amounts to a test of Iraq’s stability as the U.S. plans to remove its troops. A credible election without significant violence would show that the security improvements of the past 18 months are taking hold. The outcome will also show which parties stand the best chance of success in parliamentary elections a year later.

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