Summary: The U.S. is preparing a major attack on the Taliban, the militants are being squeezed in their Pakistani sanctuaries, and the Afghan government is trying to draw them into peace talks. … NATO is sending reinforcements to Kandahar, 260 miles southwest of Kabul, ahead of a major offensive to reverse Taliban gains in southern Afghanistan. … Suicide bomb kills 6 in Afghan south. A bomb on a parked motorcycle exploded on the outskirts of the holy city of Karbala, killing at least 20 Shiite pilgrims and wounding 110. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 5, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that with the reduction of violence in Iraq following a U.S. troop “surge” and other measures, foreign militants were flooding into Afghanistan to join Taliban insurgents battling Afghan and international troops. He also reported that Father Bruce Wollmering OSB, monk and priest, died suddenly on February 4, 2009 at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn. Subsequently, on December 9, 2009, it was reported that former student Jeramiah (Jerry) McCarthy had filed a fraud lawsuit against St. John’s Prep School and Abbey for allegedly covering up sexual misconduct by Fr. Bruce Wollmering since the mid-1960s.

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Summary: Three car bombs exploded near three Baghdad hotels popular with Western journalists, security contractors, and businessmen, killing at least 37 people and injuring more than 100. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 25, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported on the upcoming Jan. 31, 2009 provincial elections in Iraq — an important test of Iraq’s stability as the U.S. planned to begin withdrawing its troops.

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Summary: Afghans took to the streets to protest civilian casualties, chanting “Death to Obama, down with Karzai.” … Attacks in Afghanistan killed eight American civilians including CIA employees, four Canadian soldiers, and a Canadian journalist. … Coordinated explosions in Iraq killed 23 people and wounded an Iraqi provincial governor in the worst violence in months. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 31, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Michele Bachmann, Minnesota’s 6th District representative in Congress, made a strong showing in several “Year in Review” lists — no easy feat, considering the U.S. House of Representatives has 435 members, each vying for media attention.

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Summary: An Afghan soldier killed a U.S. service member and wounded two Italian soldiers in western Afghanistan. … Pakistani authorities appealed for calm after a bombing against a Shiite Muslim procession marking the holy day of Ashoura killed 43 in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, setting off riots and igniting fears of sectarian unrest. … Gunmen killed five Sunni security guards — members of the Sons of Iraq, or Awakening Councils — in a gruesome pre-dawn slaying at a village checkpoint north of Baghdad. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 29, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that 8,300 to 9,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in 2008, bringing the total number of civilian deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to at least 98,400, according to figures released by Iraq Body Count.

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Summary: Pope Benedict XVI 2009 Christmas message … “Urbi et Orbi” … “To the City and to the World” … Immelman family 2008 Christmas greeting. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 25, 2008, Aubrey Immelman posted Pope Benedict XVI’s 2008 Christmas message, “Urbi et Orbi” [“To the City and to the World”] and sent out the Immelman family’s 2008 Christmas greeting.

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Summary: U.S. Navy warships fired missiles at suspected al-Qaida training camps in Yemen, with that government’s support, according to Pentagon sources. One U.S. official said President Barack Obama personally ordered the missile strikes in northern Yemen. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 20, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that according to U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, Zimbabwe had collapsed and ran the risk of deteriorating into Somalia-scale chaos. He also featured a personality profile of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe that he developed in 2002 with Adam Beatty at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics and reported that for the sixth consecutive year, Iraq was the deadliest place in the world for journalists in 2008.

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Summary: Iranian troops have crossed into Iraq and seized an oil well in a disputed area along the two countries’ southern border. Iraqi security forces were in the area, but there are no reports of any fighting or shots fired. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 18, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that at least 25 Iraqi interior ministry officials had been arrested, including several accused of planning a coup; that the Iraqi government accused U.S. forces of killing at least three Trade Ministry employees in a pre-dawn raid on ministry property in Baghdad; and that attackers shot and beheaded Nahla Hussein al-Shaly, 37, leader of the women’s league of the Kurdish Communist Party, reportedly because she promoted women’s rights in Iraq.

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Summary: A suicide car bomb in Baghdad flattened a court building and an explosives-rigged ambulance blew down walls like dominos near the Finance Ministry in a wave of coordinated attacks that targeted high-profile symbols of Iraqi authority, killing at least 127 people and wounding more than 500. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 8, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that Taliban militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital U.S. military supply line.

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Summary: Similarities between George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and Barack Obama’s surge plan for Afghanistan belie the fact that there are few commonalities between the two war theaters. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 5, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that the number of terrorist attacks against police in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal regions bordering Afghanistan had increased from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 in 2007, and that police are outgunned, out-financed, and fighting a losing battle against Taliban insurgents.

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Summary: Many soldiers and policy makers believe the conflict in Afghanistan may be harder and more intractable than the war in Iraq. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on November 28, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had said in an Internet video that the U.S. financial crisis was caused by Washington’s military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan and that taxpayers were paying the price; and that 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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