Global SITREP C10-17: Back to Syria

IDF Northern Command Exercise "Light of Dagan"

UPDATE 15 September 2017: Some may have taken notice, but some may not, that the warfighting occurring in eastern Syria at this time is defining the border that will exist in the future between Israel and the land Bible prophecy refers to as 'Assyria' ('Ashshuwr). (Isaiah 19:23-25)  That border will be the Euphrates River in Syria. In fact, there is something more that very few Christians in the West are aware of: a great many of the soldiers currently spearheading the CJTF-OIR offensive discussed below in the Khabur River valley and Euphrates River valley are ethnic Assyrians. Ethnic Assyrians are overwhemlingly Christian.

12 September 2017: There are major changes occurring on the Syrian battlefield, from the Golan to the Jordanian border to the Iraq border. Most alarming are reports that Hezbollah forces have taken positions on the Jordanian border along with elements of a Syrian armored division. We do not have to guess that this development, if confirmed, seriously crosses one of Israel's red lines.

Israel has an ongoing all-forces warfighting exercise to simulate a Hezbollah incursion from Lebanon; halting that incursion and then going on offense to eradicate the Iranian proxy once and for all. As for Syria and the threats its Deputy Foreign Minister recently made against Israel, Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman responded with a blunt statement of his own, saying, "I strongly suggest to our neighbors from the north not to try us or send threats, because we take all threats seriously. And I do not suggest that they test us, and I do not advise them to enter into a confrontation with the State of Israel. Because for them it will end badly, very badly."

To the east, there appears to be some cooperation (deconfliction) between US-backed forces (CJTF-OIR allied Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF) moving southwards along the east bank of the Euphrates River and the Khabur River valley towards the Iraqi border, and Syrian/Hezbollah/Iranian proxies moving in the same direction along the west bank of the Euphrates River. Both forces are squeezing what's left of Islamic State forces in eastern Syria. Some reports hold that there's only 10 miles separating these two forces in the vicinity of Deir Ezzor, Syria.

The map above depicts the military situation in Syria on 5 September 2017. To this map, and based upon recent OSINT, I have illustrated with red arrows the CJTF-OIR offensive and objective moving southeasterly along the east bank of the Euphrates River and south through the Khabur River valley from Syrian Kurdistan (yellow area). These forces will push through the rapidly diminishing Islamic State controlled territory (gray area) towards Deir Ezzor and Al-Mayadin, Syria and ultimately to the final objective corridor from Abu Hamam, and Al-Bukamal to Al Qaim on the Syrian-Iraqi border. 

It is critically important to note that the success of this mission will preempt the Iranian objective of establishing a "land bridge" from Iran to the Mediterranean Coast. This is where a direct military clash between the US-led CJTF-OIR forces and Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah forces is most likely to occur in late September or early October. The final rub will come when CJTF-OIR and SDF forces have defeated Islamic States forces and move to turn over the territory they've cleared to local civilian representative councils (anti-Assad), as has already been done in central Syria. The local populace councils (Sunni Muslim) will then manage security and the governance of the region with CJTF-OIR coalition support.

16 August 2017: Israel has discovered through its EROS-B satellite reconnaissance imagery, operated by the Israeli firm ImageSat, that Iranian construction of a major ballistic missile production and storage facility in a wide valley known as Wadi Jan'em. This massive facility lies five miles west of the coastal town of Baniyas, and is rapidly nearing completion, possibly if not probably before the end of this year. This facility is located well within the Russian air defense umbrella located less than six miles to the northwest at Hmeimim Air Base. PM Netanyahu has stated that Israel will do whatever is necessary in the protection of its national security interest.

The Google Earth image above shows the full scope of the construction area. The major southwest to northeast and northwest to southeast axis of the construction zone measure one mile by two miles, respectively, in length each. They contain at least 20 large buildings along each axis. Some images in the media of this construction only show a small portion of the area in the upper right-hand part of the above image. The above image shows the full scope of the construction zone.

Most western media report this massive facility to be a "Scud" missile factory. However, that identification for this site is quite inaccurate. It would be better to state that this is one very massive and advanced long-range missile production complex that is capable of producing every part of a ballistic missile, from engine and fuel, to the fuselage, to the explosive in the warhead.  As if the Middle East needed yet another potential flash-point for a greater conflict, this one is begging to be struck by Israeli air power sooner rather than later, and not unlike the IAF mission of nearly ten years ago against a nuclear reactor at Al Kibar, and which we remember in vivid detail as 'Operation Orchard' (September 2007). 

Global SITREP A9-16: Rise of the Prophetic Assyria?

Critical Update 9 March 2016: The U.S. CENTCOM Commander, General Lloyd Austin, informed the U.S. Congress yesterday that the failure of Mosul Dam (ancient and Biblical Nineveh) is a catastrophe waiting to happen: "If the dam fails, it will be a catastrophic. There will be thousands of people downstream that will either be injured or killed, certainly displaced. And the damage could extend all the way down to -- close to Baghdad, or into Baghdad"

 According to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad the "unprecedented" catastrophe would be of biblical proportions with the resultant 200-mile long flood potentially killing 500,000 to 1.5 million of the people who live in Mosul, the Tigris Valley towns of Tikrit and Samarra and southwards to Baghdad. The Mosul hydroelectric dam holds 2.2 cubic miles of water behind it in Lake Dahuk. These flood waters could reach depths of 45 or more feet during their rampage to the south. Mosul itself could suddenly find itself under 70 feet of water within an hour of the dam's failure.

Since the dam was build in the 1980s is has required a constant maintenance practice known as 'grouting' to keep it from collapsing completely. The process of grouting essentially shores up the ground underneath the dam with millions of tons of concrete. In 2014 when forces of the Islamic State over ran Mosul and took control of the dam all of the maintenance workers fled for their lives and have never returned. For two years now the critically essential grouting maintenance has not occurred and the dam is now in imminent danger of collapse.


27 February 2016:  There are a couple OSINT items that need to be part of an update to this SITREP. The first is from Bloomberg Business News which reported early this morning that all Kurdish leaders have agreed to proceed with a national referendum. In this referendum the issue of Kurdistan's independence from Iraq is an issue that will be decided by the Kurdish people themselves. 

An independent Kurdistan will be born with a Kurdish-developed petroleum production infrastructure sitting on 45 billion barrels of crude oil reserves according to British Petroleum (BP Plc) data. The Iraqi government, for its part, says the planned referendum is illegal without coordination and approval from itself. Kurdistan has been exporting its own oil and reaping the financial benefits through a pipeline into Turkey for the past six months. These profits has largely been consumed by a collapsing oil market as well as the increasingly successful prosecution of the war against Islamic State invaders.

A report in The Economist supports what has been posted below, Kurdish independence is a virtual fait accompli among the resident 6 million Iraqi Kurds. What they have yet to determine is when independence will occur and where the national borders will be fixed. All of the factors necessary for a successful independent nation exist in Kurdistan. A hundred years after the Kurdish people were divided up by European colonial powers (principally Britain and France) into four artificially created national borders of the former Ottoman Turkey, Iran, Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) self-determination will be begun by the Kurds in Iraq. The rise of the Islamic State has been central to the drive for Kurdish self-determination and, ultimately, independence as a nation-state.

 

25 February 2016: There are strong indications that a specific but rarely discussed Bible prophecy from the Book of Isaiah may actually be in the process of becoming a reality in the world.

Isaiah 19:23-25 (KJ21)

In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.”

As clearly indicated by the map above, I think this prophecy may be directly related to the emergence of an independent Kurdistan, which for all intents and purposes is occurring in de facto fashion due to the fracturing of Iraq and the ongoing war against the islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Compare the above map with one which depicts the same area as it was circa the time that Isaiah lived gave this prophecy.

The point of this map is the area of the in the darker shade of green. You will notice that the intended future state of Kurdistan is virtually identical to that which was the central homeland of Assyria in Isaiah's day, or roughly 800 to 750 BC.

In the past several weeks an increasingly loud call for an independent Kurdistan has been made not just by Kurdish leaders, but also by an array of international voices. Notable among them is the State of Israel, in particular its Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, who one month ago called for an independent Kurdistan. Her call was more or less specific to Iraqi Kurdistan given that the rest of Iraq is currently under the Ayatollah Khamenei's domination.

But what is perhaps one of the driving forces at present is an American reliance on the Kurds in the war against the Islamic State. Iraqi Kurds are fighting to free themselves and others who live in the region from IS tyranny, such as the Yazidis and native Assyrians. It is highly unlikely the Kurds will relinquish a de facto independence they have purchased with their own blood.

But the Kurd's are taking their quest for statehood a step further than just de facto existence. Masoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq has announced that the time has come for a popular referendum of Kurdish independence. There is little doubt that the referendum will pass with 98% of the people voting for independence.

To be sure there are other important factors involved. Chief among them from the eschatological point-of-view are the fulfillment of prophecies regarding Syria (Isaiah 17, and Jeremiah 49:23-27), Iran (Jeremiah 49:34-39), as well as Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38/39. What all of these prophecies make clear is that, with the exception of Israel, the majority of current nations which these prophecies directly involve will have ceased to exist in the not too distant future. That leaves a vacuum in the region, one that a new country such as a Kurdistan, or as the Bible prophetically calls it, Assyria, to fill those territories north and east of the Euphrates River.'

This is another of the rapidly changing dynamics in the Middle Est that could have been part of SITREP A8-16, but I believe warrants a SITREP of its own given that the Bible prophecy of Isaiah 19:23-25 clearly foretells the rise of a new nation north of a greater Israel in the near future.

Global SITREP B6-14: An Eye On Kurdistan

24 January 2014: This is a good time to look through the periscope and see what's going on around on the periphery of the Middle East battlegrounds. One rather expansive tract of territory to place an eye on is that of "Kurdistan."

What we know as Kurdistan looms large right now. The Kurds, all 30 million of them, live in contiguous territory within southeastern Turkey, northeastern Syria, northern Iraq and northwestern Iran and constitutes the world's largest ethnic group without its own internationally recognized homeland.

Since the end of the 1991 Gulf War the Kurds in northern Iraq, a/k/a "Iraqi Kurdistan," have maintained and improved on an autonomous political entity known as the Kurdistan Regional Government. This government essentially functions as if it were a separate country, but it remains an integral part of Iraq. In Iran and Turkey the Kurds have long been a festering insurgency for those two governments, especially with respect to Turkey. 

In Syria it's not much different, except that the over two million Kurds living there take on all sides in the ongoing civil war should they encroach upon "Syrian Kurdistan."  Following the rejection of a Syrian Kurdish request to join the Syrian civil war negotiations in Switzerland the Kurds on Tuesday of this week made known their extreme displeasure at being rejected as peace parlay participants and promptly declared the formation of their own provincial government for "Syrian Kurdistan." The image at the top is from one of the Kurds flag-festooned rallies this past week in northern Syria.

In the map image, the part of Syria is actually slightly out of date as the Kurdish militia has taken a lot more territory for itself with all lands from Ras-al-Ain on the Turkish border, south along the Khabir River to the city of Al Hassakah and then on to the Iraqi border being under their military control. 

The most interesting thing to note with respect to the above map is how much this territory resembles that of ancient Assyria prior to the conquest of Aram, Damascus and the northern kingdom of Israel. With 30 million people longing for a homeland of their own I have come to consider that the prophecy of Isaiah 19:23-25 might very well apply to Kurdistan (Assyria) during the Millennium of the Lord's reign finally getting their homeland as the inheritors of the northern part of ancient Assyria.

"In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”"

The prophetic "In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria - a blessing in the midst of the land..." tells me that the map of the Middle East will be radically different than it looks today. Gone from the current map are the countries of Lebanon, Aram (Damascus) Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In their geographic place are just three countries serving the Lord of hosts: "Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance."

Isaiah 17: An Unfulfilled Prophecy!

Update 1 September 2013: Considering the very high volume of reader interest is this blog item I am moving it forward from the original posting date to the present. It is the position of Eschatology Today that Isaiah 17 is fast approaching the date of its literal fulfillment in our day.

12 February 2012: It has come to my attention recently through Christian foum posts and Email exchanges that there are Bible prophecy teachers today who are teaching that the prophesied destruction of Damascus by Isaiah (Chapter 17) was fulfilled in 723 BC in the Assyrian conquest of Aram-Damascus by Tiglath-Peleser.

I am going to be very blunt about this: such teaching does not originate from within the Word of God. Period.

Damascus was not destroyed in the Assyrian conquest. Damascus did not "cease from being a city," and it was not reduced to "a heap of ruins" as prophesied by Isaiah.

The conclusive answer to this question originated elsewhere within God's Word. The Assyrian conquest of Aram-Damascus in 732 BC is discussed in detail in 2 Kings 16. 2 Kings 16 is the Lord's historical record.

As the 2 King 16 historical record points out Judah's king Ahaz instigated Tiglath-Peleser of Assyria to launch an invasion of Aram-Damascus which then was under the reign of king Rezin. Moreover, it was Judah's king Ahaz who paid for the Assyrian invasion of Aram-Damascus with gold and silver he took from the Temple in Jerusalem.

Then we read in 2 Kings 16:9:

"So the king of Assyria heeded him; for the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin."

In the very next verse (verse 10) we see Judah's king Ahaz meeting with Assyria's king Tiglath-Peleser in the city of Damascus. Clearly the city of Damascus was not destroyed in any manner, and most certainly not according to the prophecy of Isaiah 17. The Aramean population of Aram-Damascus was deported as the Assyrian standard operating procedure following a conquest dictated. The Assyrians then re-populated the city with people from elsewhere within the empire and Damascus has remained a settled city continuously for the past 2,744 years.

There are these additional facts which have been known to scholars and historical researchers for thousands of years.

• Damascus was still mentioned in Assyrian sources in 727, 720, and 694 B.C.E. and even as late as the reign of Ashurbanipal (668–627 B.C.E.).

• Assyrian decline led to Damascus being taken over by Pharoah Necho II of Egypt circa 610 BC. Damascus then fell to the Babylonians when Pharoah Necho II lost the epic Battle of Carchemish in 605 BC.

• In the Persian period, Damascus was an important administrative center, and may have been the capital of the satrapy of Trans-Euphrates (cuneiform, ebir nãri; Aram. avar nahara [Ezra:4:10, etc.]; Heb. ever ha-nahar [Ezra 8:36; Neh. 2:7, 9]).

• Circa 333 BC there occurred the conquest of Damascus under the rule of Darius III of Persia by Alexander the Great. Damascus was thereafter a Macedonian colony and the capital city of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia to 111 BC.

• Then to the Roman times when Damascus was conquered from the Seleucid's by Roman General Pompey in 64 BC, and of course, the many references to Damascus in the New Testament.

Let this information serve as an attention-getting red-flag to all Christian prophecy teachers who are incorrectly interpreting and teaching Isaiah 17 to their lay people and those who read their work online or in periodicals.

Let these teachers take note and make the required correction immediately. Since 2 Kings 16 does not tell us that Damascus ceased "from being a city," that it became "a ruinous heap" at the hands of Assyria's Tiglath-Pileser, then what would the correct prophecy teaching regarding Isaiah 17 be?

Obviously, Isaiah 17 is an unfulfilled prophecy!

Assyria Destroyed, Philistia Destroyed

15 February 2008: I have come upon some verses in Isaiah in which the Lord declares His irreversable and permanent purpose to destroy the Assyrian, to remove his yoke and burden. Given these verses then how is it even remotely possible for an Islamic Assyrian Antichrist to rise as postulated by the "eastern leg" proponents of Daniel 9:26? It appears to me that said exegetical proponents of an Islamic Assyrian Antichrist are espousing a false teaching that is in direct opposition to the Word of God.

Isaiah 14:24-32 (New King James Version)

Assyria Destroyed

24 The LORD of hosts has sworn, saying,

“ Surely, as I have thought, so it shall come to pass,

And as I have purposed, so it shall stand:

25 That I will break the Assyrian in My land,

And on My mountains tread him underfoot.

Then his yoke shall be removed from them,

And his burden removed from their shoulders.

26 This is the purpose that is purposed against the whole earth,

And this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.

27 For the LORD of hosts has purposed,

And who will annul it?

His hand is stretched out,

And who will turn it back?”

The very next set of verses describe the destruction of the Philistines. Is it even remotely possible that these verses would not be intimately connected to the prophecies found in Psalm 83 and Isaiah 17 which declare the coming destruction of these same enemies of Israel, among other immediately adjacent tribes and nations? Of course not. To suggest otherwise is a Biblically unfounded exegesis, and the teaching of such things is to be opposed in true contention of the Faith. I take this position in like manner as Paul directly opposed Peter when Peter was clearly in the wrong, so that they may come to the same brotherly Christian understanding that Peter came to as a result of Paul's opposition.

Philistia Destroyed

28 This is the burden which came in the year that King Ahaz died.

29 “ Do not rejoice, all you of Philistia,

Because the rod that struck you is broken;

For out of the serpent’s roots will come forth a viper,

And its offspring will be a fiery flying serpent.

30 The firstborn of the poor will feed,

And the needy will lie down in safety;

I will kill your roots with famine,

And it will slay your remnant.

31 Wail, O gate! Cry, O city!

All you of Philistia are dissolved;

For smoke will come from the north,

And no one will be alone in his appointed times.”

32 What will they answer the messengers of the nation?

That the LORD has founded Zion,

And the poor of His people shall take refuge in it.