Summary: In the fourth major terrorist attack in Pakistan this week, a pair of suicide bombers targeting army vehicles detonated explosives within seconds of each other, killing at least 43 people in the eastern city of Lahore and wounding about 100. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 12, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that the FBI was investigating whether young Somali men were being radicalized in Minnesota and recruited to fight with terrorist groups such as al-Shabab in Somalia.
Summary: The suicide bomber behind the Dec. 30, 2009 attack on CIA Forward Operating Base Chapman in eastern Afghanistan, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, claims 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 made of senior al-Qaeda leaders. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 4, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that two days after calling conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh a mere “entertainer” with an “incendiary” talk show, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele apologized and acknowledged Limbaugh as a “national conservative leader” in a spat that raised questions about the leadership of the GOP.
Summary: Baitullah Mehsud, commander of the Pakistani Taliban until he was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August 2009, said in March last year his group was planning an attack on the White House that would “amaze” the world. In that regard, it’s notable that Osama bin Laden reportedly told 9/11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh that he preferred the White House over the Capitol as a target. Hence, it must be assumed that the White House is currently at the top of al-Qaida’s high-value target list. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 18, 2009, Aubrey Immelman considered how George W. Bush might restore his legacy upon leaving office in a climate where 98 percent of historians view his tenure as a failure and only 13 percent of Americans believe he helped solve the country’s problems.
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.
Summary: On her first official visit to Pakistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton faced sharp rebukes from Pakistani audiences brimming with resentment toward U.S. foreign policy, including one woman who accused the U.S. of conducting “executions without trial” in aerial drone strikes, equating it to terrorism. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 12th day of his write-in campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, in line with his focus on national security, Aubrey Immelman reported a suicide bombing attack on the Afghan Ministry of Information and Culture targeting foreign advisers in Kabul, the downing of a U.S. helicopter in central Afghanistan, the killing of two U.S. soldiers in northern Afghanistan by a suicide bomber wearing a police uniform, and ongoing violence in Iraq.
Summary: The new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, threatened to strike back at Pakistan and the United States for airstrikes by unmanned U.S. drones in northwestern Pakistan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 26th day after losing his 2008 primary challenge against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in line with his focus on national security, reported that the senior British commander in Afghanistan had said that a decisive military victory in Afghanistan was impossible and that the objective in Afghanistan should be to achieve a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat. He also reported on a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan and ongoing violence in Iraq.
Summary: A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a sandbagged wall surrounding a police headquarters in northern Iraq, killing five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen in the single deadliest attack against U.S. forces in more than a year, while tens of thousands of supporters of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burned ex-President George W. Bush in effigy at a rally marking the sixth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces. … March 28, 2016 update: Terrorists from a Pakistani Taliban splinter group attacked an amusement park in Lahore with a suicide blast that killed more than 70 people and injured more than 300, many of them women and children. The terrorists said they were targeting Christians and promised more attacks.