Summary: White House aide John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, says U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss a “smoking gun” that could have prevented the attempt by radical Islamic fundamentalist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 3, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that tensions were mounting between Sunni Arabs and Kurds in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, where political violence was increasing ahead of provincial elections.

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Summary: In the latest sign that Yemen — the country where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the suspect in the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing recently spent some time — is becoming a focus for both the West and extremists, Britain announced that it and the U.S. have agreed to fund a counterterrorism police unit there. Meanwhile, Somalia’s Islamist rebel group al-Shabab said it was ready to send reinforcements to al-Qaida in Yemen should the U.S. carry out retaliatory strikes, and urged other Muslims to follow suit. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on January 2, 2009, Aubrey Immelman reported that South African anti-apartheid icon Helen Suzman, one of the first white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of whites-only rule in that country, died on Thursday, January 1, 2009 at the age of 91.

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Summary: The New York Times reports that in the midst of two unfinished major wars — Afghanistan and Iraq — the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 28, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Taliban, which had long operated its own shadow government in the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan, had begun spreading north, encroaching on the capital city of Kabul.

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Summary: U.S. agencies are looking into whether al-Qaida extremists in Yemen directed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and provided him with the explosives used in the failed bombing of Northwest Flight 253. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on December 26, 2008, Aubrey Immelman reported a new Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013, which projects that the terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security, and increasing Internet savvy — with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear [CBRN] attacks considered the most dangerous threats to U.S. national security.

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Summary: Terror alert level raised as a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, claiming ties to al-Qaida, tries to light an apparent explosive powder aboard a commercial jetliner before it lands in Detroit.

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Summary: On the same day that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Obama administration’s effort in the eight-year-old Afghanistan war is “only now beginning,” former U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) — a potential successor to Secretary Gates — published an op-ed article in the Washington Post in which he cautions, “No country today has the power to impose its will and values on other nations. … Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.” … One year ago today, on the 51st day of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman released a video statement regarding the serious national security implications of the Iraq war, which Rep. Bachmann failed to address the previous evening in her speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

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Summary: Kandahar, Afghanistan shows signs of slipping back under Taliban control as August 2009 becomes the deadliest month of the eight-year war for U.S. troops in Afghanistan — a setback for President Barack Obama’s war strategy. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 46th day of his campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, Aubrey Immelman, in line with his campaign focus on national security issues, addressed links between the Iraqi government and Iran and the role of the Iraq war in empowering Iran.

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