Global SITREP C5-17: The Syrian Situation Revisited Part VII

Marjan Oil Field rig 

30 June 2017: Last entry for Part VII. Warfare for control of Quneitra resulted again in the Syrian Army deliberately sending mortar rounds into Israel. No one can be that far off in getting their mortar fire on-target. The IAF response was to immediately obliterate the Syrian mortar position.

Also, within the past 24-hours Russian propaganda media has reported that rebel forces in Daraa plan to use chemical weapons in a manner so as to blame it on the Al-Assad regime and in so doing cause retaliatory US/French air strikes on the regime. This report is an I&W that the Al-Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, is likely behind any such event should it actually occur in the stalemated Daraa warzone.

28 June 2017: It turns out that we caught the Syrians red-handed making Sarin at one of the Al -Sha'irat Air Base shelters not destroyed in the Tomahawk attack of two months ago. It looks as if the mixed of precursor chemicals has stopped and Syria has, for the moment at least, backed down. 

Last night, 27 June, the White House issued a warning to Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime which is identical to the expectation published here (highlighted below) one week ago. The Associated Press published and then updated the White House warning early this morning. 

The warning is based on received, actionable and highly critical intelligence that al-Assad's military was detected preparing precursor chemicals "for a possible sarin gas attack in either the east (or) south of the country." So highly critical, urgent and actionable was the received intelligence that the normal American inter-governmental channels for issuing a direct warning to the Syrian government were bypassed. The warning was direct in stating that both Bashar al-Assad and his military forces would pay a "heavy price" if the chemical attack were to occur.

There is nowhere more south in Syria than the under siege city of Dara'a, and the east of the country is hotly contested by the U.S.-led CJTF-OIR forces against approaching Iranian/Hezbollah and Syrian columns as reported here in the previous parts of this SITREP.


26 June 2017: All eyes on the Golan Heights. A major flare-up could occur here at any moment's notice. Since Saturday the IAF has destroyed a Syrian heavy machine gun bunker and two Syrian Main Battle Tanks, both costing Syrian soldiers their lives.  

20 June 2017: Two noteworthy items. First, Saudi coastal security forces caught a team of IRGC-QF terrorists red-handed in the midst of an operation to blow up several Marjan Oil Field rigs. The Saudi's apprehended one IRGC terrorist team in their explosives-laden watercraft while two other teams managed to escape back into Iranian waters. Such an attack, even though it was thwarted, is an act of war, and serves to illustrate the nearness of Jeremiah 49:34-39 to its literal fulfillment.

Second, as noted earlier in comments, Russia is seriously outgunned by the US in the ongoing showdown in Syria. Also noted in the previous SITREP was the recent forward deployment into Syria of just two U.S. HIMARS rocket artillery system vehicles. Russian squawking about this deployment of two HIMARS 6x6 vehicles illustrates how sensitive they are to their mere presence.

However, two HIMARS vehicles do not constitute an overwhelming offensive juggernaut. So why the Russian angst? Note Russia's recent ultimatum to strike U.S. air or ground assets which located west of the Euphrates River. This is precisely where the HIMARS have been deployed. So, would Russia actually launch strikes against the HIMARS to show their resolve to counter the U.S. build up and make good on their threat? If this is Putin and his generals plan they had better reconsider and recalculate their risk assessment.

For the sake of argument, let's say Russia takes them out. In the U.S. counter-strike we would in a matter of minutes, certainly within an hour's time, take out all of their expensive big boy toys toys at Hmeimim Air Base. The embarked airwing of the USS G.H.W. Bush is a mere 5 minutes away from reaching out and touching those Russian toys, even while in port Haifa, and in a manner that would leave none of them operational. Without their vaunted S300 and S400 air defense systems and an operable runway at Hmeimim Air Base the Russian mission in Syria would effectively be eliminated. Mission incomplete, mission fail. The point is that Russia is severely outgunned in Syria.

Putin feeling froggy? Think he might jump? Not if he's as smart as he thinks he is. President Trump and his senior Pentagon military planners are calling Putin's bluff. Nevertheless, miscalculations do happen and Bible prophecy indicates there may well be a near-term miscalculation in Syria.

F/A-18 Super Hornets

The Eschatology Today predicted event written about in Part V of this series has now occurred and the also predicted new phase of the war in Syria is now a fact. It took almost exactly 30 days for the prediction within the 15 May update of that SITREP to occur in the real-world:

15 May 2017: The two nuclear-armed (US and Russia) opposing armed force coalitions in Syria now appear to be engaged in operations designed to seize and hold territory. This is conventional warfare as we have known it for millennia. The real danger here is the allies with each coalition could engage each other in combat, either deliberately or by accident and particularly in southern and western Syria. In the skies overhead a free-for-all dogfight could also occur between the two sides combat aircraft. And then there's the continuing Iranian-Hezbollah drive to seize the Syrian side of the Golan. This is all stage-setting for the major conflagration this series on the Syrian Situation has been highlighting according to Bible prophecy (Isaiah 17; Jeremiah 49:23-27)

If one were to continue to read the paragraph following the above from that same update and then look at the situation that is now developing just to the north of the "cities of Aroer" of northwestern Jordan, that is, around Dara'a, Syria, and as reinforced in the recent 18 June update in Part VI of this series, one might be able to see how these events are eminently predictable through the literal interpretation of the plain text wording of Isaiah's and Jeremiah's prophetic texts:

I would speculate (actually, I expect) that the Dara'a campaign appears to be falling into an Aleppo-like grind where the Syrian regime's offensive makes no headway resulting in the use of chemical weapons by the al-Assad regime in an attempt to break the stalemate. We all should understand what will result if this does occur as Dara'a lies just 9 miles from the Jordanian border.

So, with this as the lead-in to Part VII of this series, we can hopefully have a better understanding of how these prophecies will come to their literal fulfillment. What is Bible prophecy if not God telling us well in advance what will happen in the future due to the decisions made by the opposing sides in these last days "wars and rumors of wars." 

The critical thing is, these are no longer a hazy or distant future fulfillment of prophetic texts, but fulfillment that we can see occurring now, coming with as little advance notice as a Biblical month of 30 days. We're talking in this series on Syria about literal prophetic fulfillment before it happens, not as occurs from far too many preachers pulpits where the discussion is after the fact. This is utilizing the fulfillment of Bible prophecy as testimony to the inerrant nature of the LORD God's prophetic word. If this is not a here and now witnessing tool, then none exist.