Al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, implying that the president-elect does the bidding of whites. The message appeared aimed at persuading Muslims that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.

A strike by coalition troops against a bomb-making cell in eastern Afghanistan killed 10 militants, according to the U.S. military. The troops were targeting several key figures in a network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a militant leader believed to operate out of Pakistan.

Ann E. Dunwoody, after 33 years in the Army, ascended Friday to a peak never before reached by a woman in the U.S. military: four-star general. At an emotional ceremony, Dunwoody looked back on her years in uniform, and said it was a credit to the Army that she made history in a male-dominated military.

A coalition of atheists and agnostics wants the new White House to protect young military members from what they see as rampant religious discrimination in the services. "When they say 'there are no atheists in foxholes' it's slanderous," said Wayne Adkins, a former Army first lieutenant who served in Iraq.

It takes a brave soldier to do what Army Maj. Gen. David Blackledge did in Iraq. It takes as much bravery to do what he did when he got home. Blackledge got psychiatric counseling to deal with wartime trauma, and now he is defying the military's culture of silence.