Global SITREP E4-14: A Psalm 83 Link to the Islamic State?

UPDATE 17 November 2014: According to a knowledgeable Kurdish military leader, the Western nations have severely underestimated the fighting strength and physical numbers of the Islamic State's forces.  The West (think Obama Administration) is operating under a false assessment that IS forces number in total about 31,500 men. However, Fuad Hussein, chief of staff of Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, makes the highly supportable assessment that the West's assessment is seven times lower than the true strength of the Islamic State forces. Kurdish field commanders say the true figure is closer to 200,000 that have joined, been assimilated through baya, or actively recruited from among the Sunni populace.

The Kurdish assessment is backed by the fact that IS is able to muster thousands of troops for major assaults simultaneously from Kobani in northern Syria, to Baghdad in Iraq and in several different locales in Kurdistan in between.  Based upon the territory under IS control in Iraq and Syria (2,500,000sq.km.) there are between 10 and 12 million Sunni men of fighting age in the pool of manpower IS can draw from. A Western commitment of boots-on-the-ground would have to be closer to the numbers of Desert Storm in 1991 (500,000 to 600,000) in order to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State as the Obama Administration's plan exists today. Five bombing mission per day ain't gonna cut it.

16 November 2014: According to Islamic State caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's just released public communique, the list of Islamic State wilayat (provinces) based upon the baya (an Islamic binding oath of allegiance) received from these locales. In addition to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sinai and the Nile valley of Egypt (detailed below) the other acknowledged baya have come from al-Baghdadi's devoted followers in Saudi Arabia; Yemen; Algeria (Army of the Caliph); Libya (Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam). Interestingly, some received baya have been ignored, particularly those received from non-Arab nations such as Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines.

This would indicate a distinct Arab supremacist nature is involved with the initial growth of the Islamic State. The acknowledgement of these baya is found in Islamic State references to these various places as, for example, Wilayat Sinai.  Next on the expansionist agenda are Wilayat Jordan and Wilayat Palestine, meaning all of Israel beginning with Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem.  The "liberation" of Jerusalem and the rest of "Palestine" is the primary task assigned to Wilayat Sinai, and their brethren in the Nile Valley who will wage war on the Egyptian government currently led by President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi whom they have identified as "Zionist collaborators." The Islamic State war against Egypt from within Sinai and the Nile Valley is to take precedence over the Liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem. (See Isaiah 19 and Ezekiel 29 for related Bible prophecy).

The Islamic State also has declared another of its objectives is to annihilate the Shi'a sect of Islam in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and, obviously, Iran and Lebanon. They will leave the jihad against the "Crusaders" to their core jihadist partners in Al Qaeda and its veterans in Syria, the newly identified Khorsan group.

15 November 2014: Exactly one month ago today in the first paragraph of Global SITREP D8-14: General Observations  I posted information regarding the Sunni terrorist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and how they had sworn their jihadist allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and who are largely funded by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood - the same Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that was so steadfastly supported by the Obama Administration in their uprising against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government. Remember this because it is both very instructive about a president with two years remaining in the White House and who has long been at war with the government of the State of Israel.

I now report to you that Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, (a/k/a Ansar Jerusalem and 'Supporters of the Holy House' - which is the Dome of the Rock on Temple Mount) has gone well past declaring their allegiance to the Islamic State, they have begun declaring that the Sinai which they control is a wilayat (an Arab word meaning an administrative division, a province, a state) of the Islamic State. This is what the Islamic State's twitter feed banner above illustrates, that Sinai is a wilayat under the control of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis and is an official province of the Islamic State Caliphate.  

It may well be important for us to begin to understand this development in strictly prophetic terms and thus signalling the closeness of the coming final fulfillment of Psalm 83. At this time it does appear  that the Sinai Wilayat of the Islamic State represents the seventh of the ten groups identified by Asaph in Psalm 83 being an integral part of the confederacy of one consent seeking to destroy the State of Israel. The Sinai Wilayat of the Islamic State are  the Amalekites identified by Asaph in Psalm 83:5-8. There is also a branch of the Islamic State now active in the Nile Valley of Egypt as well.

The Amalekites were the very first enemy Israel encountered going back to antiquity when Israel wandered the wilderness of present-day Sinai and western Saudi Arabia in the days of Moses and Joshua after the exodus from Egypt. Exodus 17:8-16 provides a brief description of the first day-long battle between Israel and the Amalekites at Rephidim. Verses 14-16 foretell the final destruction of the Amalekites in the coming final fulfillment of Psalm 83.

As discussed in the previous series of Operation Protective Edge SITREPs, and as stated many times over by Israel's current leadership, HAMAS is Islamic State and Islamic State is HAMAS. Sunni jihadists are Sunni jihadists. HAMAS is born of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood; the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is HAMAS. Islamic State is in Gaza. At some point HAMAS may announce this themselves, but that would merely a confirmation of what we already know. Also at some point the Obama Administration may have to throw their support for the Egyptian Muslim brotherhood under the proverbial bus because it has recently declared war on the Islamic State. Or has it? A few bombing sorties does not a "degrade and destroy" mission make, especially without a serious commitment of American boots on the ground to take and hold territory.

In the north, in Lebanon, the Islamic State has made its presence known in a very big way recently. And along the entire length of the Israel-Syria border in the Golan Heights the jihadists known as Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda) are now in full control and face the IDF directly across the DMZ after having defeated Syrian and Hezbollah forces seeking to regain control of the border town at Quneitra. Jabhat al-Nursa (Al Qaeda) and the Islamic State, as reported here in previous SITREPS, agreed to a merger of their forces and smaller Sunni jihadi militias into a unified Sunni jihadist force to coordinate their strategic war plans for the expansion of the Caliphate, most likely into Jordan. 

Without any significant opposing military force on the ground other than the outnumbered Kurds, it may only be a relatively brief amount of time before the Islamic State Caliphate is either composed of all ten groups identified by Asaph in Psalm 83 or it consults with their Shi'a enemies, perhaps after an unprecedented catastrophe has occurred in Damascus, to turn their weapons upon Israel for the final engagements of Psalm 83. It may well be that Psalm 83 finds its final fulfillment in a final regional war from Lebanon to the Sinai, with strong arm military hardware assistance from the Islamic State-controlled region of ancient Assur, between Israel and the new Caliphate. Keep watching as this develops.

Global SITREP D8-14: General Observations

Islamic State on the move in Syria and Iraq

UPDATED 15 October 2014: Here are some rather significant things I have been keeping an eye on lately.

Egyptian forces have located and destroyed a large rocket production facility in the Sinai that had been operated by the jihadist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis ("Supporters of the Holy House"). This group of approximately 2,000 jihadists rise to prominence occurred rapidly after the overthrow of Mohammed Morsi by the Egyptian Army. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis' funding comes largely from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) in Egypt; it is allied with the jihadist groups in Gaza, and has declared is loyalty to the Islamic State.

In Syria and Iraq there is very strong evidence that Islamic State forces have used chemical weapons against Kurdish forces in their unrelenting assault on the Kurdish border town known as Kobani (a/k/a Ayn al-Arab) and against Iraqi Shi'a forces in ongoing battles in Anbar Province since this past July.  Within the past couple of days photographic evidence has emerged pointing to the use of mustard blister agent against the defenders in these battles. Where did Islamic State get this kind of chemical weapon? From the depot that formerly belonged to Saddam Hussein at the Muthanna CW bunk complex and that the Obama Administration has said would be of no use to the Islamic State. US forces controlled Muthanna prior to the unilateral Obama withdrawal from Iraq three years ago. Islamic State captured the Muthanna CW bunker complex in June 2014. Islamic State fighters are reported to be within 1 mile of Baghdad. Most Iraqi soldiers are not professionals, they are soldiers merely because they need money. At the first sight of IS soldiers inside Baghdad they will remove their uniforms and flee.

Also in the Middle East the headquarters of the 1st Infantry Division has deployed to Iraq for the fight there against Islamic State. Without much fanfare the US DoD has tasked the Marine Corps with deploying a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) unit to Kuwait as part of a regional Quick Reaction Force (QRF). The 14,500 Marines and sailors of the MEB will augment the 13,500 US troops already deployed to Kuwait, bringing the full complement of this force to 27,800 troops.The name of the less than successful thus far US-led anti-Islamic State military venture was announced by the Pentagon today: Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR).

I am most curious to learn the answer to these questions:

1) Upon what warfighting doctrine will OIR be based?
2) What is the identified ideology of the enemy?

The Russian-instigated war in Ukraine continues irregardless of a supposed ceasefire being in place. The Ukrainian government claimed today that more Russian troops have been crossing into the eastern oblasts instead of withdrawing deeper into Russian territory. According to the Ukrainian military public affairs office reported today their forces in southeastern Ukraine have come under attack thirty times in the past 24 hours by Russian-led rebel forces.

Despite most appearances on the surface, the newly installed 13th Secretary General of NATO, Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg (he replaced Anders Fogh Rasmussen on October 1st) is good news for Russia's Vladimir Putin. Jens Stoltenberg has a life-long history of being far more flexible than Barack Obama has been toward Russian military ambition, so much so that in years past Stoltenberg was actively recruited by the Russian KGB to become one of their Western agents in the latter years of the so-called Cold War. In days past Stoltenberg was one of Europe's best known anti-war activists. Watch what he does more than what he says in the days to come.

Ebola, the deadly virus officially known as EBOV, continues to spread in pandemic fashion. The UN World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland reports 70% fatalities among all known human infections and predicts upwards of 10,000 new human infections per week being a distinct possibility in the near-term. There is also WHO data which strongly indicates that the incubation period of EBOV is not the widely reported 21 days, but a significantly longer period of 42 days. This makes the current quarantine regimen wholly inadequate in preventing the spread of EBOV. Also, two tests a minimum of 48 hours apart are necessary to determine if an individual is not infected within the 42-day incubation period. This is a catastrophe of Biblical proportions in the making. The US is deploying 3,000 to 4,000 hastily trained combat troops from the 101st Air Assault Division as our contribution in the global effort to contain EBOV in western Africa.

In strategic Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, Iranian-backed Houthi tribesmen (i.e. Shi'a muslims) seized the country's main seaport and airport at Hodeidah (a/k/a al-Hudaydah) located on the center of Yemen's Red Sea coast. Hodeidah is Yemen's fourth largest city with a population of 400,000.