Global SITREP B6-16: Knowledge is Power

Jordan Border Crossing: Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda) In Control

7 April 2016: Some time ago I gave the readers of Eschatology Today a warning regarding acceptance of news reporting. The warning to the reader was that during wartime the truth will often be hidden by a bodyguard of outright lies or various levels of disinformation. The war continues and so does my warning. We need to be careful no matter where the information we receive comes from.

A case in point is the above image posted by DEBKAfile yesterday. It carried this opening sentence: "ISIS forces in southern Syria overran several Jordanian border crossings south of the Yarmouk River on Tuesday, April 5. This disastrous turn of events is illustrated by an exclusive picture obtained by debkafile of an ISIS fighter unfurling the organization’s flag at one of the crossings which sports a Jordanian flag."

Everything about this sentence is true except for the most important part - the identification of the terrorist group and flag in the image. As I privately informed the editors at DEBKAfile yesterday  afternoon (we are on the same side in this war, no?) that is NOT an ISIS terrorist waving the ISIS battle flag at an apparently abandoned Jordanian border crossing.  It is a Jabhat al-Nusra (JN) terrorist waving the Al-Qaeda-aligned Jabhat al-Nusra battle flag. 

There is no way on Earth that the astute and experienced editors at DEBKAfile made such a blatant error in the positive identification of an ISIS flag versus the Jabhat al-Nusra flag. It is something a 6-year old child with two minutes of instruction could correctly do with flash cards. 

So, the first question is: For what not-so-obvious political purpose or agenda would DEBKAfile deliberately publish a disinformational report for the whole world to see, and then create a narrative account of reactions to the image by the Israeli government and those of Jordan, the US, the Saudi and UAE military officers? Is the world to believe the military intelligence professionals working for these governments do not know the existent facts on the ground at the Jordanian border? Of course they do. So why the nonsense from DEBKAfile for John and Jane Q. Public to consume?

The second question is: If this photograph is accurate in its depiction, does it provide the first solid evidence that the forces of Islamic State and the jihadists of Al-Qaeda's brand have joined forces in the face of the ongoing Russian-Iranian-Hezbollah-Syrian military offensive, plus the U.S.led Coalition military operation? 

The third question is: If so, then why is this not the core subject of the DEBKAfile report? Why is it not the subject of Corporate News Media (in the U.S. that's ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNN and the lot) reporting? Buckle up, a completely unexpected Immelmann maneuver begins with the next sentence. 

DEBKAfile actually got the core issue correct. The Sunni jihadists of the self-declared Islamic State caliphate and the nebulous global jihadists under Al Qaeda's banner are not enemies - they're allies! They are allies in their primary jihad against the secular West, Christianity and Judaism, and secondarily against their enemies of the Russian-Syrian-Iranian axis. How do I know this? I read the stuff the corporate media have embargoed in their boardrooms because they are in agreement with the agenda being pursued by Western governments, led by our own.

Remember the good ol' days? The enemy was known and clearly identified. They were Communists who followed the rigid ideology of Communism. The US and our European and Pacific allies took this clear identification of the enemy and his ideology and crafted a warfighting doctrine with which to defeat the enemy. Ultimately the doctrine succeeded, at least with respect to the former-USSR. 

Now look at the enemy today. We know them as Islamists and their ideology is Islamism. And that's where the similarity ends because the US and our European and Pacific allies resolutely refuse to name Islamists as the enemy and Islamism as their ideology. From this point the failure escalates due to an abject refusal to use this knowledge to craft a warfighting doctrine with which to defeat this enemy. 

This is the reason why this war in many military and intelligence circles, which was fully engaged long before many of us realized that out enemy was at war with us, is known as "The Long War." Without the requisite definition of an enemy and his ideology upon which a warfighting doctrine must be crafted this war will be endless. A perpetual and perfectly good global crisis which those wielding power have no intention of allowing to go to waste.

Remember the "Global War on Terrorism"?  My how the political establishment wailed when this nomenclature was done away with, never mind the fact that no nation has ever successfully waged war against a tactic. Terrorism is not an enemy, it is a tactic used by the enemy. And the recent media headlines across Europe and the US were absolutely predictable: "Terror Attacks San Bernardino" and "Terror Attacks Paris" and "Terror Attacks Brussels."  Terror did not attack anyone or any city. Islamists executing their ideological Islamism attacked the US and French Marines in Beirut in 1983, and every cold-blooded Islamic assault since then to include San Bernardino, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, London, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Shanksville, PA, just to name a handful.

Why isn't this the real news then? Why propagate falsehood for the public to consume. You see where I am coming from, and where I am going. People are being conditioned to believe the lie. Any lie.  Any lie the regime in power wants the public to believe will be accepted because the public has been pre-conditioned to believe it. Heaven help those who reject the lie, whatever it is. And it took me all of four days to attempt to make some kind coherent sense of this and express it here.

I'm not going to hold my breath on this, but there is just the slightest chance the Islamic State-Al Qaeda alliance might become public knowledge through the global corporate media. I hold out this slim chance because I have seen in the past day or so news from Arab-language media where some exceptionally brave Muslim journalists have actually called out Islam as being responsible for the unending wave of global terror. Muslims usually don't call out other Muslims or cite Islamism as the cause of cold-blooded carnage and live long to tell about it. Chances are they'll be assassinated or beheaded, or worse, but it is a faint glimmer of a chance that will likely evaporate with a new wave of jihadist assaults in Rome, London, New York or WhoKnowsWhere. 

Marana'tha Lord, Marana'tha!

Global SITREP C12-14: The Middle East's Expanding War - Next Stop Jordan

29 June 2014: The Islamist threat to the current government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan may actually not be where most media have set their eyes in recent days. Those reports have focused on a region of Jordan well to the east of Amman. At the farthest extent of the vast Al Mafraq Governorate, Jordan's vast eastern arm, lies a desert region which is actually the southernmost portion of the Syrian desert. This desolate region is known in Jordan as Ar-Ruwayshid and it terminates at the Iraqi-Jordanian border crossing of Tarbil. There are virtually no cities of any significant population to speak of out here; it is basically just a transport corridor between Baghdad and Amman. 

The threat area, highlighted on the map above, is the city of Ma'an, officially the second poorest city in Jordan. This city of 200,000 is populated by many educated but out-of-work youth who are drawn to the perceived promises of ISIS and potential opportunity they see in the creation of a truly Salafist Islamic state without borders. An Islamic Caliphate in other words. The reason they see opportunity and are given inspiration by ISIS is due to the military successes they have achieved in neighboring Iraq. For these youth the morning begins with a visit to the Al-Furqan website used by ISIS to make their daily Salafist indoctrination and propaganda announcements which inspire these Arab youth to riot in the city. The youth are immediately beset upon with extreme prejudice and often deadly violence by the local law enforcement which is loyal to the Hashemite throne.  

This is a vicious cycle which, if we put our memory recall caps on, will remind us that this is exactly they type of cyclical violence that started the Syrian civil war which gave rise to Al Qaeda's Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS in Syria to begin with. The difference in Jordan is that both the regime and the youth are Sunni muslims, with the regime being Bedouins and the youth Arab tribesmen with strong family or clan links to Iraq. The obvious problem is that the Jordanian government has done nothing to counter the jihadist indoctrination these Jordanian youth are receiving. Now what is coming out of Ma'an are insurrectionists threats against King Abdullah II, who they refer to as a tyrant (Arabic: taghout), and calls for the destruction of Jordan's constitutional monarchy.

The Middle East's rapidly expanding war is not being put out by the powers that have the resources to do so. Mobilizing battalions and armored brigades and rushing them across desert expanses to border outposts is not how this type of war should be fought. The enemy is already inside the citadel in the heart of the country. The fairly predictable result will be one where Israel will be left alone to defend itself against the islamist assault, and I think we're all pretty much up to speed on how that will turn out according to Bible prophecy.

In the image above is a Chechen field commander of ISIS known as Muhajireen Kavkaz wa Sham. This is not a new photograph, it dates to almost a year ago. Pay particular attention to the logo and identification markings on the tent walls, and then come to understand where it is that President Obama wants to send an additional half billion of your taxpayer dollars to help with the jihad. Just look at what the last whopping batch of President Obama's funding dollars did for these "moderates" of the "religion of peace" of Al Qaeda and what they accomplished in Iraq over the past year - they built an army and have nearly over run all of Iraq after taking all of northern Syria. Then remind yourself that there's another important American election coming up in November. If you're not part of the solution in America, then you have to be part of the problem in America.

Updates 30 June 2014: With the Caliphate having been officially declared on soil occupied in Syria and Iraq by ISIS and their islamist allies, the city of Ma'an has followed this lead in open revolt against the Hashemite Throne in Amman. There are three military forces at present which can thwart the fall of the Jordanian monarchy: The Royal Jordanian Armed Forces, the forward deployed forces in the kingdom from the United States, and the IDF. Of these only the Jordanian Armed Forces under the direct command of King Abdullah II can act against an Islamist insurgency at this point in time; foreign intervention is clearly out of the question. 

With the cold-blooded murders of Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and American teen Naftali Frenkel, also 16, now confirmed as occurring at the hands of HAMAS terrorists, and who have been publicly identified as Marwan Qwasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha, what the IDF will be ordered to do with respect to HAMAS in the next few hours is not hard to imagine. What Mahmoud Abbas does and says next, and well as US President Barack Obama does and says next, may will determine the severity of punishment that is executed by the IDF. This might well signal the end of HAMAS as we have known it. And that would be a very good thing.

1 July 2014: Well that didn't take long to materialize. The IDF went into action against HAMAS targets in Gaza and Judea virtually concurrent with my typing the paragraph above. Nearly three dozen high value targets were struck by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) in Gaza, and IDF troops set upon the homes of the murderous HAMAS kidnappers in Hebron and completely demolished them. It is my understanding that this military action against HAMAS may not yet be completed as previous actions of this time have not caused HAMAS to realize the gravity of their situation; that if Israel were to choose to do so HAMAS would be rendered extinct. The Israeli government remains hopeful that HAMAS will come to this realization. Those of us who understand Bible prophecy are already aware that such is not the case. So, we'll see what the new day brings and whether or not the "stop the rocket fire, or else" warning that Israel issued to HAMAS in Gaza means anything this time around. 

In Jordan the situation appears to be resting on what course of action the spiritual leader of Jordan's Salafists will soon announce publicly. Sheikh Isam al-Barqawi, also known to his followers as Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, is expected to announce his position regarding ISIS and the potential for jihadist insurrection in Jordan. Al-Maqdisi was very recently released from Jordan's Armimin prison where he had fully served his four-year long sentence for terrorist activities. One of the leading salafist imams in the world, and who is aptly called a "mujahed imam," al-Maqdisi holds tremendous influence over Jordanian Sunnis, particularly in the salafist strongholds found in the cities of Ma'an, Zarqa, Amman, Salt, Irbid and the "Palestinian" refugee camps. The locales have been the source of hundreds of Jordanian jihadist fighters who joined the ranks of the various Al Qaeda groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS. Accordingly, it's not hard to imagine what position a mujahed imam like al-Maqdisi will announce.

 And last but not least... the image above proves that ISIS has captured at least one Scud missile from the arsenal of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. This display occurred in Raqqa, Syria, the claimed capital city of ISIS' recently declared "Islamic Caliphate." Among other captured Iraqi Army equipment shown off in the ISIS parade were several American-made M198 howitzers and other heavy combat vehicles. The Scud clearly proves that ISIS did in fact capture the Syrian missile base known as al-Taana 606 located near Aleppo, Syria as claimed back in October 2013. This photo is proof that ISIS did not destroy all of the Scud missiles as they had claimed at the time. What is unknown is if ISIS possesses the technical knowledge to make this warbird fly with its warhead, and precisely what type of warhead it may have.

Update 2 July 2014:  Jerusalem's Arab suburbs are the scene of increasingly violent riots today after the body of an Arab boy was found in Jerusalem forest who had also been brutally murdered. The Muslims immediately blamed all Israel for the murder of that boy without any proof of culpability. This new murder could easily have also been Muslim-on-Muslim violence as is occurring with great zeal throughout the Middle East for many months now. Clashes between Jews and Muslims erupted near simultaneously after the ambulances carrying the bodies of the murdered Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel were stoned as the passed by Muslims. Those clashes have continued but are now concentrated around certain East Jerusalem suburbs. Indeed, the abject hatred being put on display once again is an ancient hatred that is the subject of several Bible prophecies in the process of fulfillment.

Global SITREP C11-14: Is the Middle East Boiling Over?

IDF tank crewmen with their Merkava MBT on the Golan near the Tel Hazaka-Quneitra crossing load ammunition yesterday, 22 June 2014. (AP Photo by Oded Balilty)

23 June 2014: In response to the deliberate targeting and murder of a 12-year old boy by Syrian government forces on the Israeli Golan, IDF retaliatory strikes destroyed nine high-value Syrian targets about 15 hours ago as of this posting. The boy was accompanying his father, an Israeli defense ministry contractor looking after the border fence, when the Syrian's fired a Russian-made Kornet anti-tank rocket at them. They boy was killed; the father survived that attack. Israel scored direct hits on the Syrian 90th BDE command center in Quneitra and three subordinate battalions in the same sector. 

Further to the east, on the Jordanian-Iraqi border, the AQ ISIS terrorists have attacked and possibly have seized the main Route 10 border crossing . This report follows the ISIS capture of the last major Iraqi town of Ar-Rutba in Iraq's western Anbar province.  ISIS also recently took control of the Syria-Iraq border crossings at Al-Qa'im on Route 12 in the north and Al-Waleed on Route 11 in the south, ISIS now controls all border crossings between Syria and Iraq and is in a position to attempt to take take control of  the Jordan-Iraq border crossing. Jordanian reinforcements are reportedly enroute to the Tarbil Crossing on Route 10.

Just learned that on 19 June ISIS launched an ambush against Iranian troops at the ancient border town of Qasr-e Shirin in Kermanshah Province, Iran.  The government of Iran officially acknowledged the attack two days later on 21 June, but claimed the attackers were a Kurdish militia instead of ISIS. While Iran was not forthcoming in acknowledging any casualties, it is known that at least two Iranian officers, and possibly more, were killed in the ambush. Saudi Arabia has belatedly warned Iran to not intervene in the Iraqi civil war; the ambush of Iranian troops occurred on the same day as they entered Iraq in large numbers to support the crumbling regime of Nouri al-Maliki.

24 June 2014: The Baiji Petroleum Refinery fell under the complete control of ISIS forces today. ISIS offered free passage to Erbil for all 460 remaining Iraqi soldiers as long as they would lay down their weapons.  ISIS will reportedly now hand over the Baiji Refinery to local Sunni tribesmen. ISIS also poses an imminent threat to the Haditha Dam, a major hydroelectric asset still under government control, and to which the Iraqi government has dispatched 2000 soldiers tasked with its defense.

25 June 2014: The Al Qaeda branch in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, a/k/a The Nusra Front, pledged its loyalty to ISIS today during a meeting at the Syria-Iraq border town Albu Kamal.  The international aspect of Al Qaeda is reflected in the fact that Jabhat al-Nusra was represented at the meeting by an Egyptian jihadist and the ISIS by a Chechen commander. There is now a unified Sunni jihadist now in control of a large swath of Syrian and Iraqi territory plus virtual all of the border posts between the two countries. The oath of loyalty makes the name 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' a defacto reality.

26 June 2014: The answer to the question posed by the title of this SITREP is a resounding - Yes! The Middle East has boiled over into a virtual free-for-all of international conflict stretching from the Mediterranean coast to the Persian Gulf and from Turkey to the Saudi Desert. Eight nations (alphabetically: Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria and the United States) are now directly involved in the fighting between Sunni and Shi'a armies. The Sunni armies count among their number hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign fighters from nations all over the planet. On the Shi'a side there is also the Iranian controlled Hezbollah which effectively includes the government of Lebanon. Indirect participation of Russia can also be assumed through its shipment of arms and other war materiel into the region and in support of the Shi'a forces.

 ISIS (a/k/a DAASH) controlled territory in Syria and Iraq as of Monday, 23 June 2014 in red color. Yellow-colored areas are known additional areas of combat operations.

27 June 2014: Add Egypt to the list of the eight nations to become directly involved in the war. A contingent of Egyptian special forces are being deployed to bolster Saudi Arabian special operations forces moving to defend the border with Iraq if necessary. Saudi reconnaissance aircraft discovered an ISIS column moving towards at the Arar border crossing at Highway 80 in the Al-Judaida region.

Update 28 June 2014: A barrage of rocket and mortar artillery fire coming out of HAMAS-ruled Gaza last evening was aimed at Israeli targets in Ashkelon to the north and the Eshkol Regional Council area (see image above) to the east of Gaza. The barrage resulted in no reported injuries or damage in Israel. Details can be read in this INN report. Israel responded to this latest series of attacks prior to dawn this morning by cutting the IAF loose against four select HAMAS military targets in Gaza, all of which were destroyed. Details are in this Times of Israel report.  In the Nahal 'Iron (Wadi Ara) area (not far from Haifa) clashes between Israeli-Arabs waving PLO flags and the IDF searching for a trio of kidnapped Israeli youth resulted in injuries to both the Arabs and IDF troops. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman was correct in saying that all those Arabs who support the actions of terrorists "should be treated as terrorists in every respect." That means bullets instead of tear gas. Soon enough, Avigdor, soon enough. It is inevitable.

Global SITREP C12-14 will pick up where this leaves off.

Global SITREP C9-14: ISIS Takes Mosul, Baiji and Tikrit in Iraq

UPDATE 13 June 2014: Exactly as forecast on Eschatology Today on 11 June, Iranian forces have intervened in Iraq in an attempt to bring to a quick halt the march of Sunni Al Qaeda- ISIS jihadists on the Shi'a strongholds in eastern Iraq. The Wall Street Journal reported in today's edition that two battalions of Iran's IRGC Qods Force along with the IRGC commander, General Qassem Suleimani. General Suleimani has apparently taken operational control of Iraqi defenses around Baghdad. The presence of Iranian Shi'a troops fighting alongside Iraqi Shi'a troops against Sunni Iraqi's on Iraqi soil will undoubtedly have the effect of throwing high-octane gasoline on an already raging inferno. This war has now entered a completely new paradigm far beyond anything seen previously on the Syrian Sunni versus Shi'a front lines. More barrel bombs and even chemical warfare are almost certain to be central to the coming escalation.

 12 June 2014: Al Qaeda's ISIS is now at a full gallop in what it calls "Operation Entering the Gates."  The "Gates" they intend to enter are those of Baghdad. As detailed below they have acquired as spoils of war in direct confrontation with the Iraqi Army more than enough resources to accomplish their mission. The Iraqi Army, armed with US-made M1A1 Main Battle Tanks, MRAP armored personnel carriers plus fixed and rotary-wing combat aircraft was summarily routed and brushed aside after just four days of contact with massed and well coordinated ISIS forces.

On the battlefield west of Mosul, a feint against the main Iraqi line was followed by a blitz on the Iraqi rear to the east of Mosul which tore open the Iraqi defenses and sent what remained of the defenders fleeing for their very lives. The ISIS field commander for this operation is the very stealthy jihadist known by the nom de guerre "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," but whose real name is Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri. He may well prove to be the next Osama bin Laden of Islamic jihadism.

ISIS forces have not stopped their advance, but actually increased their pace of combat operations and are streaming southward towards Baghdad in two primary columns, and driving a thoroughly defeated Iraqi army before them. The Baghdad government of President Nouri al-Maliki now has nowhere else to turn but to his patrons in Tehran as the Obama Administration has effectively thrown his former Iraqi allies under the bus in favor of the AQ ISIS jihadists. Is this the price to be paid in Obama's neck-breaking gambit to achieve a suicidal nuclear deal with Tehran? Sure seems that way.

11 June 2014: Within 24 hours of taking Mosul the forces of ISIS have now taken Baiji (pop. 200,000) and Tikrit (pop. 260,000 and famous as the home of the late dictator Saddam Hussein) in Saladin Province. In Baiji these Sunni jihadists have taken control of Iraq's largest oil refinery and the heavily industrialized heartland of Iraq. The large power plant in Baiji is an electrical lifeline to Baghdad. Saladin Province is the very heart of ancient Assur. In addition, Al Qaeda's ISIS also took possession of more than $425 Million dollars of cold, hard cash from the Central Bank in Mosul, not to mention an entire division's worth of armored vehicles and munitions of every description.

Without immediate direct military intervention from the Shi'a Islamic Republic of Iran (which I believe is imminent) it's puppet regime in Baghdad and what is left of Iraq are living on borrowed time. The hasty, ill-advised and premature departure of American and Coalition forces in Iraq (ordered by Commander-In-Chief Barack Hussein Obama), the last of which departed just two and one-half years ago, have made this stunning victory by Al Qaeda's ISIS possible and made a extremely wasteful mockery of the objectives America and its allies fought for in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
 
10 June 2014: Directly above at the top of this continuing post is a graphic image published on this date by DEBKAfile. This image gets to the heart once again of what I have been discussing for some time now about the modern-day Assur as spoken of by the prophet Asaph in Psalm 83 verse 8. This map is showing us at this late hour the actual territory (shaded as Islamic green) of the tenth nation mentioned in the Psalm 83 enemy confederation and which is directly linked to Jordan (i.e. "the children of Lot").  

As essential background data I urge you to re-visit these previous Eschatology Today posts, and which also contain links to other posts on this blog dealing with the same subject.

Psalm 83 Verse 8: Assur - Syria or Iraq?

Global SITREP B11-13: Psalm 83 and AQ in Iraq

For illustrative and comparative purposes consider the above green shaded part of the image with the two lighter pink shaded areas of the image below.  Even though these two images are on different scales, they do effectively illustrate us how the terrorist non-state known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, occupies the exact same territory today as did Assur circa 1000 BC when Asaph was inspired to compose Psalm 83.

 Again, we watch current events which have every probability of becoming literally fulfilled prophecy before our witnessing eyes, and in this case what we are talking about is a prophecy which is simultaneously 3,000 years old but also as current as today's news.

Global SITREP C1-14: Al Qaeda Shuts Off Euphrates River; Assault on Baghdad Coming

The once mighty Euphrates River coursing through Baghdad becoming a memory of yesteryear.

UPDATE 30 April 2014: Almost two weeks after the posting of this report on the military gains being made by the Sunni Islamist insurgency in Iraq, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article titled "Fledgling Iraqi Military Is Outmatched on Battlefield" which confirms in detail what had been written here previously.

A key quote from the WSJ article:

“More than two years after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, as the country prepares for its first post-occupation parliamentary elections on Wednesday, its demoralized, underequipped military is losing the fight against Islamist militants, who are better armed, better trained, and better motivated, according to Iraqi and American generals, politicians and analysts.”

The article's authors, Matt Bradley and Ali Nabhan, go on to note:

"Even the most basic maneuvers can stymie the Iraqi military. Regional commanders who lack basic knowledge of military logistics often are clumsy when transporting food for soldiers on the move, leaving many enlistees to scrounge for themselves or go hungry, say officers and observers.  Without meals, some soldiers simply leave. Though there are no official statistics, military personnel cite desertion as a persistent and growing problem, particularly for troops deployed in Anbar and other areas to the north where ISIS is active.

This is dismaying considering how much time and effort the United States spent in standing up the Iraqi security forces. By the time that U.S. troops pulled out at the end of 2011, the Iraqi security forces numbered more than 600,000 and appeared, at least on paper, to be more than capable of safeguarding their country.  Appearances, it turned out, were illusory. The Iraqi troops are perfectly capable of fighting if well-supplied, -supported, and -led. But supplying them–much less planning their operations and providing the kind of integrated intelligence and fire support they need–is beyond the rudimentary abilities of the Iraqi military. U.S. advisers filled in the gaps, but now they are gone and Iraq is spiraling downward.

This is a warning of what could happen in Afghanistan."

 It is good to know that the persistent study of Bible prophecy will advance the knowledge of any watchful student at least two weeks ahead of current events reported by the secular media.

15 April 2014: The Islamist Al-Qaeda forces in Iraq have shut the water off in Baghdad by closing all of the Falluja Euphrates Dam's gates yesterday.  In current foreshadows of Revelation 9 and 16, the bottom of the Euphrates River in its course through Baghdad is showing its sandy bottom very clearly in many places.

Everything south of the Falluja Dam is going to have an unbearably miserable time as the heat of the Iraqi desert is already absolutely overwhelming without water resources. Not in recent memory has the world seen a humanitarian crisis in a major world capital as could emerge from the closing of this dam. Accompanied by the arrival of full-scale war once again in Baghdad and this place could become a literal hell on earth in a very few weeks time.

Recent parades of the Islamist forces and their warfighting hardware in Falluja and Abu Ghraib (adjacent to BIAP - Baghdad Int'l Airport) are showing they have acquired as battlefield spoils quite a number of up-armored Humvees and M-113 APCs the US left behind to re-equip the Iraqi Army after the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) a couple of years ago. These forces are under the supreme command of the former "King of Clubs" during OIF, General Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri.

 

General Al-Duri was Saddam Hussein's top military aide and a key figure within Saddam's Ba'athist dictatorship in Iraq. He successfully eluded capture by US and Coalition forces for the entirety of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He knows things that the Iranian Shi'a overlords of Baghdad do not know.  The shutting off of the water supply is the first indication and Warning (I&W) that he intends to take Baghdad very soon and by all means at his disposal. Outside of direct Iranian military intervention, there is nothing much to stop him. At a minimum the near total depopulation of Baghdad is a near-term likelihood.

Additional References:

Global SITREP B11-13: Psalm 83 and AQ in Iraq 

Global SITREP A1-14: Psalm 83 and AQ against Israel

Psalm 83 Verse 8: Assur - Syria or Iraq?