Philippines raid on ISIL nets 15 KIA's

AP:
Philippine airstrikes have killed 15 Muslim militants linked to the Islamic State group, including a suspected Indonesian militant, while one of Southeast Asia's top terror suspects was seriously wounded in the country's south, the military chief said Sunday.

Military Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Ano said the body of the suspected Indonesian militant, known by his nom de guerre Mohisen, was recovered by troops along with three dead Filipino followers of militant leader Isnilon Hapilon, who was seriously wounded in the hilly outskirts of Butig town in Lanao del Sur province.

Eleven other militants were reportedly killed, Ano said, citing intelligence, but added their bodies have not been found.

Hapilon was wounded in the arm and was losing blood after air force aircraft, including FA50 supersonic fighter jets, dropped six 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs Wednesday night and Thursday on a militant encampment in an ongoing offensive, Ano and another air force official said. It was the first time that the FA50s, which were acquired from South Korea in late 2015 as the military's only fighter jets, were deployed in a combat mission.

Four FA50s have been delivered and the rest of 12 jets are to be delivered by July, air force officials said. President Rodrigo Duterte has criticized the FA50s as being inadequate for counterinsurgency operations and good only as fly-by aircraft for ceremonies.

Hapilon was being moved around by his men on a makeshift stretcher but could not escape from Lanao, about 830 kilometers (520 miles) south of Manila, because artillery-backed troops have blocked possible exit points, Ano said.

"We're making it very difficult for them to move around and survive," Ano told The Associated Press by telephone.
...
There is much more.

This gives you another example of the breadth of the worldwide war against Islamic terrorism.  While the caliphate is under attack in Iraq and Syria, its tentacles reach far and wide.  Duterte may want to rethink his opinion about the efficacy of the FA50's.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more