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| IDF Armor and combat soldiers prepare for battle |
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| Pantsyr-S1 (SA-22 Greyhound) Air Defense System |
6 March 2016: There are reports circulating in the Middle East (Kuwait's al-Jarida and Israel Hayom) today that Russia has suspended its decision to deliver the highly-regarded S-300 SAM system system to Iran. The suspension was apparently based upon iron-clad Israeli photo reconnaissance and signals intelligence provided to Russia that Iran has successfully transferred a number of the Pantsyr-S1 Air Defense Systems (NATO: SA-22 'Greyhound'). The Israeli intelligence was reinforced by detection of the Pantsyr-S1 operating in Lebanon by the Russian Air Force unit deployed to Bassel al-Assad Air Base.
The Pantsyr-S1 ADS vehicles were paid for by Iran and intended for delivery to Syria, but were clandestinely re-routed instead to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This legerdemain transfer is a blatant crossing of Israel's 'red lines' as well as a breach of an Israeli-Russian agreement regrading Iran-Russia weapons systems deliveries. The Israeli intelligence coup apparently forced Vladimir Putin to publicly order the suspension of S-300 SAM systems to Iran. Russia has made it clear to both Tehran and Damascus that while they are on the same side in support of Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime, Russia's objective interests in Syria are dissimilar and even contradictory to Iran's interests in Syria.
Thus far Russia has not deployed, as it has promised, any ground forces into combat operations in Syria. Russian marines are in Syria to defend the Bassel al-Assad Air Base. To date Russia has suffered a total of three KIA in Syria, two of whom Russia blames on Turkey's (NATO) military forces.
4 March 2013: The death of Lebanon. One of the key eschatological points of coming prophetic fulfillment maintained by this Eschatology Today blog from its very beginnings in 2009 (see Are Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 Imminent?), and repeated every so often just to keep the prophetic issue in the minds of our readers (such as Global SITREP E7-14: Advancing Our Situational Awareness of 'Lest Days' Wars), and which was even given a dedicated post of its very own titled Joshua 13:1-7 which describes the death of Lebanon as an inheritance to Israel, as well as the crisis in Syria born of missiles and the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah which has always been a military red line for the state of Israel, the impetus for numerous airstrikes by the IAF along the Lebanese-Syrian border, the current situational flare-up caused by the recent comments of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah should be seen as just another Indication and Warning (I&W) on the hair-trigger holding back the imminent flood of prophetic fulfillment erupting on the occasion of the next sunrise or sunset. It's that close brothers and sisters.
From a stage in southern Beirut two weeks ago Hassan Nasrallah and Hezbollah broadcast a 90-minute speech, dubbed "The Ammonia Speech" by Israel's military and intelligence officials. This speech was given on the occasion of the one-year anniversary commemoration of the deaths of Jihad Mughniyeh, an Iranian general and senior Hezbollah commanders who were assassinated in an Israel Air Force strike as they approached the Syrian Golan in a small convoy of vehicles.
In Nasrallah's "Ammonia Speech," the text obviously approved by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran, the Hezbollah leader deliberately revealed a primary strategic target of the guided missiles provided to his terrorist organization by Iran and delivered via Syria is the ammonia storage facility in the Haifa Bay industrial complex. Nasrallah correctly noted that just shy of a million of Israel's population live in this immediate area and when struck by his missiles "tens of thousands of Israelis" would die, and that according to an unidentified Israeli expert the destructive scope of such an attack would be the equivalent of a nuclear strike.
While this vulnerability might have been joyful news to the Shi'a faithful listening to Nasrallah's speech, it was by no stretch of the imagination news to Israel's authorities in any sector of the government, but has been an acknowledged concern for the past eight years. In fact, the entire industrial complex in the Haifa Bay region has been well publicized in Israeli media debates which have themselves used the metaphor of an enemy missile strike here being like that to expect from a nuclear bomb. The result is that Iran and Hezbollah view the threat of such a strike as holding Israel's immense military capabilities in a sort of check-mate.
Nothing could be further from the truth as clearly illustrated by the numerous IAF airstrikes since 2008 in the Qalamoun Mountain range just west of Damascus on the Lebanese-Syria border. Israel has the capability to conduct defensive air strikes at will anywhere within Syria and/or Lebanon where intelligence data shows a red line is in jeopardy of being crossed. Israel has the electromagnetic warfare capabilities to turn off the Lebanese and Syrian electrical grid at the time and place of its choosing. What occurred last night in this regard is within Israel's capability and just might have been a reminder of sorts to its belligerent northern neighbors.
Nasrallah's ammonia threat appeared more to assuage Lebanese fears concerning Hezbollah over-extending its military forces in Syria and Yemen where its combat fatalities increase by the day. Nasrallah's detractors constantly argue as to how is Hezbollah's oft-stated commitment to defend Lebanon by allowing its soldiers to die as Iranian proxies in Syria and Yemen. Thus, Hassan Nasrallah is exposed as nothing more than a tool of the Iranian Twelvers seeking to hasten the revealing of a non-existent Shi'a apocalypse messiah figure known as the al-Mahdi.
Despite all, what we are left with is the imminent near-term reality of prophetic fulfillment regarding Damascus, the entire country of Syria and the whole of Lebanon. The removal of the safety holding the prophetic events of Isaiah 17, Jeremiah 40:23-27, Joshua 13 and Psalm 83 as a future literal fulfillments is, as stated above, as possible as the occasion of next sunrise or sunset. No one knows what will cause the trigger to get pulled or the button pushed to cause this expected flood of prophetic fulfillment, but it will certainly happen in the relative near-term. When the death of Lebanon occurs, it will be Hezbollah and its apocalyptic Shi'a Islamic ideology that will have caused it.
As it was in the days of Noah... Marana'tha!
