Global SITREP A4-19: Israel's Northern Front Offensive - Part II

Updated 7 February 2019: The importance Eschatology Today placed upon the OSINT reporting in yesterday's update on the S-300 battery going operational at Masyaf has been confirmed via a just updated report published this morning in Israel by i24News: "Operational Advancement of S-300 Mean a Dangerous Junction Ahead in Syria." As stated in the i24News assessment, the use of the S-300 against IAF aircraft striking Iranian military targets, which Israel will strike again as determined necessary, can easily pull the Syrian regime into full-scale war against Israel. We know this potential war as the fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27, and it could ignite, as noted previously, at any moment within the new few weeks. 

Question: Was the shoot down last September of the Russian IL-22 "Coot" ELINT aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea by wildly-firing Syrian air defense batteries a possible fulfillment of Jeremiah 49:23? Is the still impending battle of Idlib, where skirmishes all along the front lines are a near daily occurrence, the "bad news" Hama (Hamath) and Idlib (Arpad) are to hear? Make no mistake, these are the events which Jeremiah's prophecy declares as preceding the destruction of Damascus by an all-consuming fire. Keep watching brothers and sisters.

The second of two expect Iranian rocket launches (read: ICBM tests) has failed.
Sounds like the Lord's breaking of the Iranian bow is in-progress. The current plan is for US forces to be withdrawn from Syria by the end of April.

The US announced today that our military forces are prepared to protect US facilities and personnel in Venezuela if the need arises. Venezuela immediaely rolled out its Russian-made S-300VM air defense system. Massive amounts of life-saving humanitarian supplies (50 metric tons from the U.S. alone) are now building up at the border crossing of Cucuta, Colombia at the request of Interim President Guaido. Supporting Interim President Guaido is important as that will be the most expedient method of getting Hezbollah out of Venezuela. Mass defections of the Venezuelan military to the Guaido forces are increasing by the hour. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

6 February 2019: OSINT reports indicate that Iranian military entrenchment continues with large IRGC and Syrian government cargo aircraft flying continually in a Damascus-Tehran-Damascus circuit. These flights are monitored extensively by OSINT reporting as well as US/Israeli military aircraft as noted below.

The Syrian S-300 battery that arrived from Russia and deployed to Masyaf northwest of Damascus in October 2018 is nearing an operational capability according to satellite imagery acquired by the Israeli company ImageSat International (ISI). The latest ISI image (Times of Israel clickable image below) released yesterday reveals that three out of the four missile canisters of this battery are now standing upright in pre-launch position. The 4th canister tube launcher remains covered by camouflage netting.

In other OSINT news, the U.S. Army has purchased for immediate use an upgraded version of Israel's Rafael/IAI-built Iron Dome Air Defense System. The new block variant has an increased range of intercept from 45 miles to 155 miles. Testing of the upgraded system was done in the United States. Cost: $400 million. For immediate deployment and potential use against Iranian tactical missiles.

There is an increased yet secretive Russian transfer of armored vehicles, howitzers, ammunition and supplies into the Russian-occupied Donbas region of southern Ukraine. 

4 February 2019: OSINT this morning is reporting several US and Israeli intelligence collection aircraft are active over the eastern Mediterranean Sea opposite the Lebanese and Syrian coastlines. The intel collector aircraft involved are two USAF RC-135 Rivet Joint and two IAF G550 SIGINT Nachshon Shavit. There is also IAF activity over Mt. Hermon and a pair of RAF (UK) Tornado GR4 aircraft out of Cyprus.. Inbound large cargo aircraft from Tehran to Damascus are the object of the ongoing intelligence collection. Action of this type has been known in recent time to precede IAF strikes in southern Syria. We'll soon see if the bellicose threats from Tehran and Damascus have been a bluff or not.

A day ago CJTF-OIR aircraft attacked and destroyed a Syrian Army artillery piece and wounded two soldiers in the region just west of Abu Kamal. The artillery piece was identified as firing upon CJTF-OIR ground forces.

Russia recently completed the contruction of 18 hardend shelters for its strike aircraft based at Khmeimim Air Base. The Russians are not planning any soon withdrawal of their forces from Syria; they have a 50-year deal with the Syrian government.

29 January 2019: All indications are that Israel's airborne offensive targeting Iranian bases and supply depots in Syria have caused extensive and severe damage to the three primary enemies, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, and their warfighting infrastructure. If the rhetoric coming from these three enemies in just the past week is to be believed, and there's no reason not to believe them, then the flood of prophetic pre-70th Week fulfillment discussed on Eschatology Today for the past several years may well be just a matter of a few weeks away, if not sooner.

Of interest is the news that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has emerged from a period of virtual invisibility which led to rampant rumors of his death or medical incapacitation. Nasrallah's re-appearance was perhaps forced by the overwhelming success Israel has achieved in its two most recent strikes on Iranian bases in around Damascus, Syria; the preemptive destruction of war materiel destined for delivery to Hezbollah, as well as the destruction of strategic tunnels (Operation Northern Shield) which had been of critical import to their war plans for the coming hostilities. With a matter of just six weeks Israel significantly has altered the battlefield to its great tactical and strategic advantage.

Why is this kind of detail important? It may not be to many readers, but it is to Eschatology Today as it is a real-time record and historical account of the prophetic events that are upon this world.

As stated previously on this blog, the prophetic pre-70th Week wars will come to pass as a flood comes to the unsuspecting village in the valley below. The vast majority of the world today is not concerned with the Lord's prophetic word; this world denies His word and ridicules those who profess it. Think back to the days of early 70 AD as several Roman legions began to invade the land. The Roman legions marched their conquering way in battle after battle, skirmish after skirmish towards Jerusalem, eventually surrounding and laying a siege to the city and its Holy Mount which the Lord's presence had departed at the crucifixion of Jesus Messiah. Is there any written account of that day circa 33 AD in which the writer exclaimed the literal fulfillment of Daniel 9:26? Is there any citing the passing of thirty-seven years between the first two lines of that verse? No, there isn't. The closest writings are the Gospels and the Book of Acts which were written decades after-the-fact. 

So it is today with the majority of those alive on planet earth in utter disbelief of the ongoing process of eschatological fulfillment. There are even those calling themselves 'Christians' who profess denial of these facts known to us and which are progressing forward on a daily basis, just as the Roman legions progressed upon Jerusalem two-thousand years ago. Echatology Today is currently proclaiming that we are nearing the culmination of time in the coming flood of fulfillment. The time remaining is so very, very short. And in a still unknown nanosecond we shall be taken. Hopefully the Lord will allow this and other blogs to remain for the benfit of those to be redeemed during the 70th Week. 

"The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined."

Russia's role in these coming events is on everyone's mind these days. Some believe that Ezekiel 38/39 will be launched from Syria. Eschatology Today has never accepted this faulty theory, and will offer some recent OSINT in support of this position. 

But first, there is a Biblical reason why Gog of Magog will not launch his attempt to conquer and loot Israel from Syria, and it is found in Isaiah 17:1-3. This passage of Scripture directly links the ruination of Damascus, the abandonment of human habitation of the "cities of Aroer," with the end of the miv·tsär' (hold, fenced-in, fortress) of Ephraim (so-called 'Palestinian territory" of the northern West Bank/Judea and Samaria), the kingdom (sovereign government) in Damascus and the remnant of `Aram (Syria). The exsum exegesis of this, as we've discussed previously, is that Syria as we know it today will have ceased to exist. Put another way, Russia's military forces in Syria are, by hook or by crook, going back to Russia prior to Ezekiel 38/39. Additionally, Russian forces in Syria at present are by no means even close to being adequate to fulfill what is prophesied in Ezekiel 38/39.

Now for the real-world OSINT. Russia is in deep, deep economic trouble. This is on the surface a real-world high-probability cause for Gog of Magog to one day soon seek the conquest and looting of the coming 'greater Israel.' Russia has been spending huge sums of currency on modernizing its own military hardware, its military ongoing adventurism, plus the military hardware of Bashar al-Assad in Syria (and elsewhere, like Venezuela) and for which it has not been paid-in-full. But this is all a veneer beneath which lies a Russian economy in an utterly pitiful state. Few in the Russian population believe their current leader can solve Russian problems at home. There are tens of millions of Russians living daily in horrible conditions while the ruling elite of the country bask in luxury. Russia, it could be said, it a Venezuela waiting to happen.

In exsum, Russia today is in many cases in economic worse shape than it was when the Soviet Union collapsed, and no one in Russia has any idea how to put this humpty-dumpty back together again. Eschatology Today believes that Russia, one way or another, will withdraw its meager forces out of Syria and then God will take over to complete the impending collapse as we see in the Ezekiel 38/39 prophecy.

To be continued...