Top security adviser quits White House

Gen Jones’s deputy, Tom Donilon, will take over as the top security adviser.

Mr Obama praised Gen Jones, a lifelong military man before his White House post, as a “dedicated public servant and a friend to me”.

The President turned over the job to Mr Donilon, a workhorse figure in the White House who brings to the job a long background of Democratic politics and diplomacy.

The President said Gen Jones, from the start, had planned to leave within two years.

The move comes one week after Mr Obama lost his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who quit to run for mayor of his and Obama’s home town, Chicago, Illinois. Other significant staff changes are likely.

Gen Jones has served during a time when Mr Obama sought to reshape American foreign policy on many fronts, from ending the combat mission in Iraq to expanding the war in Afghanistan