Summary: In an intercepted electronic communication, al-Qaida’s two top leaders — Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of al-Qaida Central, and Nasir al-Wahishi, leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula — agreed they wanted to do “something big” on the Muslim holiday Laylat al-Qadr, the 27th night of Ramadan, which in 2013 fell on the weekend of August 3-4.

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Summary: Ayman al-Zawahiri has been named to succeed Osama bin Laden as leader of the al-Qaida terrorist organization. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on June 15, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: The surging unrest in numerous countries in the Middle East and northern Africa is a complex and fast-moving story. To help make sense of it, msnbc.com asked experts to share their insights on the protests, answer readers’ questions, and explain why what happens in that volatile region matters. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on March 31, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iraq’s political disarray had 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.

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Summary: Heavy gunfire reverberated in central Cairo as supporters and foes of embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak continued to face off at Tahrir Square, where chunks of concrete and Molotov cocktails were employed as weapons in the escalating crisis. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on February 2, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: As Egyptians take to the streets to call for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, some analysts caution about the prospect of protests in Egypt spreading across the Arab world, with popular revolt erupting in Middle Eastern countries such as Yemen, Jordan, Syria, and even Saudi Arabia, with grave implications for regional stability and U.S. national security interests. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 31, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Special Forces working with Afghan commandos clashed with Afghan troops manning a snow-covered outpost and called in an airstrike, killing four Afghan soldiers in a case of mistaken identity. Separately, an Afghan interpreter killed two U.S. service members at a combat outpost and U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan imam when his car approached a convoy.

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Summary: The Obama administration has ramped up its secret war on terror groups with a new military targeting center to oversee the growing use of special operations strikes against suspected militants in hot spots around the world. The creation of the center comes as part of the administration’s increasing reliance on clandestine and covert action to hunt terror suspects. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Dr. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, the 32-year-old Jordanian physician who struck the CIA’s Camp Chapman forward operating base in Khost province near the Afghan-Pakistan border on December 30, 2009 killing seven Central Intelligence Agency employees, matched the psychological profile of a specific type of suicide bomber.

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Summary: Fuad Mohamed “Shongole” Qalaf, leader of al-Shabab, Somalia’s al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgency, is threatening to attack America. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 28, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that in the midst of two unfinished wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — the United States had quietly opened a third, largely covert, war front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

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Summary: Investigators believe the same al-Qaida-affiliated group responsible for the Christmas Day underwear bomb were behind the PETN-based devices hidden in packages sent from Yemen. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on October 30, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on her first official visit to Pakistan, 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.

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Summary: A group of prominent Muslim clerics, led by Sheik Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, warned they will call for jihad, or holy war, if the U.S. sends troops to fight al-Qaida in Yemen. … Taliban suicide bombings and other attacks caused Afghan civilian deaths to soar in 2009 to the highest annual level of the war, a U.N. report has found, while deaths attributed to allied troops dropped nearly 30 percent — advancing a key U.S. public diplomacy goal for winning over the Afghan people. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 14, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that Iranian demonstrators, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Death to Obama,” burned photographs of Barack Obama in Tehran a week before his inauguration as president as they protested against America’s inaction over Gaza.

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Summary: While ramping up the fight against al-Qaida with U.S. help, the Yemeni government has also escalated its own internal conflicts with Shi’ite rebels in the north and Sunni secessionists in the south, threatening to throw the fractured country into greater chaos and nourish the growth of al-Qaida. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 9, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had called on the Iraqi resistance to stage “revenge operations” against American forces to protest Israel’s Gaza offensive.

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