Free Republic

A former military adviser who worked for Hillary Clinton at the State Department says her “sloppy communications with her senior staff” could have undermined two counterterrorism operations. Bill Johnson, the department’s adviser to the special operations section of the US Pacific Command in 2010 and 2011, told Newsweek that secret plans to kill the head of a Filipino jihadi group and stop Chinese armaments being smuggled into Iraq both failed. “I had several missions that went inexplicably wrong, with the targets one step ahead of us,” said Johnson, who worked in Air Force special ops for more than 25 years...

The Philippine military says it has killed three senior militants from al-Qaeda-linked groups in a raid in the south of the country. The air raid took place on Thursday in an area known as a militant stronghold. Officials said two Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) leaders and one Abu Sayyaf leader were among a total of 15 people killed. Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, or Marwan, who was on the US FBI's most wanted list with a $5m (£3.2m) reward offered for his capture, was reported killed. According to the military, the militants were killed in the town of Parang on Jolo island,...