Global SITREP C4-24: "Catastrophic Success"

Clickable Map of Syrian Governorates

UPDATED 8 December 2024: The above clickable (enlargeable) map is for those who would like a graphic point of reference for provinces (governorates) and their capitals and the locations of important cites. The chosen title for this SITREP, "Catastrophic Success" comes from a decade ago when many in the government feared a radical Islamist (ISIS) takeover of the whole of Syria. Eschatology Today accepts this terminology as being appropriate for the current situation in Syria.

ANNOUNCEMENT:

For those who are new here or just arriving after searching out a website like this (yes, I do see you accessing this site), Eschatology Today is first and foremost a blog about God-breathed prophecy in the Holy Scriptures. The sovereign will of God Almighty has been expressed through His prophets of ancient Israel; He has known what will come to pass on this earth since before time began as He has always existed outside of time and space as humanity can understand those concepts. 

Hence, the LORD spoke of future events through the prophets He selected; He did so for the purpose the living in those days would have understanding by seeking out His Word. To those who seek He provides understanding as necessary through His Spirit. For questions that begin with, "Will this or that happen..." seek His inerrant counsel on the issue as Jesus our Messiah (Christ) taught us, and that is go into a private place and ask of Him directly the question you may have. My personal suggestion for those who earnestly are seeking Him, ask Him to prove to you that He is what He has always said He is. He is the "I AM that I AM." (In Hebrew this is written as YHWH." Be ready for His response - it will change your life FOREVER and in ways that will leave no doubt about His love for you personally. There is no better time for this as we are living in the days of the so-called "end times." The "end times are simply those days, months and years prior to the physical Second Coming of Jesus Christ to establish the His Millennial Kingdom on this Earth.

The Syrian Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad that arose in a coup d'etat led by his father Hafez al-Assad is no more. Remnants of the regime will fade into history over the coming days, weeks or months, as the fractious conglomeration of rebellious militias, primarily Sunni, begin to assert control over the areas they currently hold. They may begin to war amongst themselves or strike out at other enemies such as Shi'a militias which are not Syrian but foreigners. They may move against Russian controlled territory in the governorates of Tartous and Latakia. Thay may, as Islamist all, move against Israel on the Golan. Whatever does actually take place going forward has been foretold primarily be the prophet Isaiah (Chapter 17) and the prophet Jeremiah (Chapter 49). These things are what will take place in the near-term. Eschatology Today will track these events as the LORD directs based upon His revealed word in Scripture.

Clickable Map of the UNDOF

The IDF has occupied the area on this map shaded in yellow. With the collapse of the Syrian regime the 1974 Disengagement of Forces agreement (DOF) became null and void. Israel increased in land area today.

It has long been said that World War IV (WWIV) would begin in the Middle East. Yes, WWIV, because WWIII  was fought and won, it was the so-called "Cold War" of 1944-1991. 

WWIV began on October 7, 2023 and it continues to this very minute and will continue for some time to come. WWIV will likely conclude, if that's the correct terminology, with Ezekiel 38-39, which heralds the start of the 70th Week of Years, a/k/a the Thlipsis and Megas Thlipsis (Tribulation and Great Tribulation). You all are well aware of how this ends, and for the Bride of Christ it's with the shout "COME UP HITHER!"

9 December 2024: The Bottom Line - The al-Assad regime is gone but the civil war in Syria has not ended. There has not been a legitimate transfer of political power which realistically keeps Syria a powderkeg with a lit fuse.

An amalgamation of insurgent militias have control of Syria's major cities in most of western Syria. These insurgents have differing ideological views. 

Some, possibly a majority, are Sunni jihadists. 

Some are scattered remnants of ISIS.

Some are north Syrian tribesmen who are loyal to Erdogan's Turkiye. 

Some are Kurds who control a third of Syria in the regions east of the Euphrates River and are backed by the U.S.-led military coalition.

Some are southern Syrian tribesmen also backed by the U.S.-led military coalition centered in Al-Tanf on the Jordan and Iraq border region, and who recently extended their control northward to Palmyra.

Some are Arab Syrians from the southern Dara'a region who are mixed with local Druse populations.

And then there are the Alawi, cousins of Shi'a Islam in Tartus and Latakia on the Syrian coastline who until a day ago had been dominant over the rest of Sunni Arab Syria via the al-Assad regime.

Added to this mix are foreign military groups such as the IRGC-QF advisors and technical support from Iran, the Shi'a Iraqi PMU militia formations and the Shi'a Fatemiyoun militia from Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as isolated Russian troops in several makeshift encampments scattered across the rest of Syria west of the Euphrates River.

All of this lies right across the northern border of Israel.

And the prophecies of Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49;23-27 have not come to complete fulfillment, which is something global media would never mention.

It's not over in Syria yet, not by a longshot.

OPERATION "BASHAN ARROW"

UPDATE 11 December 2024: In the elapsed time since the last update (about 48 hours) Israel's land, sea and air forces have attacked and destroyed more than 250 military bases, depots, facilities, grounded aircraft (fixed and rotary wing), missile batteries, AA gun emplacements, tanks and armored vehicles. You name it as a military asset of the former regime and the Israeli Air Force has destroyed it. This continuing IDF action, known as Operation Bashan Arrow, is unprecedented in the past 100-year history of modern warfare. 

And it has been a virtual turkey shoot because since the former regime's troops abandoned their posts there has been ZERO air defense over Syria or any kind of defense against Israel's actions. Zip, nada, nothing. Russian and Iranian forces are of no help, they can't fly or are hunkered down in survival mode and looking for a way out. The U.S. and Turkey have hit select targets but not nearly on the scale that Israel has. 

One has to wonder how the victorious Sunni-led insurgency is viewing the annihilation of their expected war booty. There's not much left except for burnt and charred scrap metal.

UPDATE 14 December 2024: The image above captured one of seventeen IAF air strikes on Friday night directed at Iranian-constructed tunnels within the Qalamoun Mountains west of Damascus.

The strategic tunnels were identified by intelligence operations to contain missiles, warheads and their launching platforms. Battle damage assessments have not yet been released on mission objectives. 

It's not too far-fetched to envision that IDF special forces will need to converge on the area, raid the tunnels and destroy them completely as strategic tunnels would contain strategic assets of the former regime such as WMD warheads for the missiles.

A masked opposition fighter carries a flag of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque in the old walled city of Damascus, Syria, on December 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The flag carried by the "opposition fighter" in the image above IS the standard Black Flag of Jihad used by Islamic Jihadists all over the world in their ongoing war against non-Muslim kufr (infidels). HTS was and remains a Jihadist army now in control of Syria.

Any questions?

The above are Sunni jihadists of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP). Their contingent in Idlib, Syria is reported to be 4,000 fully equipped troops. The TIP are Uighurs from Xinjiang, PRC. They call their homeland East Turkistan, but currently operate as a integral component force of HTS in Syria. Their ultimate objective is to wage jihad against the PRC and establish an Islamic caliphate in Xinjiang and throughout Central Asia.

Marana'tha!

Global SITREP A10-24: The End of HAMAS and The War in the North Part V

The Theater of Prophetic War

UPDATED 30 May 2024: Eschatology Today may be the first to note that the current war launched against Israel by the Islamic jihadists of HAMAS in Gaza on October 7, 2023, and then joined by the Islamic jihadists in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Yemen has fully transitioned from a war of localized tactical engagements to a war of theater-wide strategic engagements. This transition brings us to the doorstep of the over-arching prophetic scenario discussed here for more than the past decade. The deployment and use of strategic strike weapons such as 1,000 miles plus drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles is the defining character of the strategic change to this war. As such great and fearful changes lie ahead as detailed by the inspired prophets of ancient Israel.

UPDATE 03 June 2024: Fires in northern Israel today started by Hezbollah rockets and incendiary drone attacks. 

Most of us will recall that incendiaries were sent over the border from Gaza into Israel prior to HAMAS' invasion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023. Those incendiary devices sparked dozens of fires in southern Israel. 

How long will Israel wait before the Hezbollah menace is neutralized? The IDF is well aware that Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies have been practicing repeating what HAMAS did, but this time in northern Israel. The clock is ticking.

Marana'tha!

Global SITREP A8-20: Situation Chaotic

Turkish Army advances in Idlib

12 February 2020: Once again we're back with an eye on Syria. The situation there continues to deteriorate. Aside from the IAF strikes in recent days against Iranian encroachment, which the Russians say could lead to all-out war between Syria and Israel with Russia supporting Syria, we also have the increasing likelihood of all-out war between Turkey and Syria. 

And where else would this erupt in full but in the same general locale as we've been looking at for some time now - northwest Syria, the province of Idlib. Remember how Jeremiah 49:23-27 specifically identified this region! And the Turkish leadership also threatens today to attack Syrian forces anywhere in Syria, including Damascus. Wars and rumors of war. 

And all the grotesque things (famine, pestilence) that come with war which are making northwestern Syria a humanitarian catastrophe. Since the Syrian, Iranian and Russian military offensive began in February 2019 over 1 million refugees have been pushed towards the Turkish border; those who refuse to be pushed out (ethnic cleansing) are massacred by indiscriminant airstrikes and shelling of civilian neighborhoods, hospitals and schools. No question about war crimes taking place. But these are still the beginning of sorrows.

Speaking of which, a plague of locusts in East Africa will most certainly increase the already rampant famine there and even further afield. The 2019-nCoV is now beyond all attempts to contain and control it, and it's not the only viral outbreak occurring. Then there are the quakes rumbling around the globle, Japan, Papua New Guinea and Iran being the most recent. All these things are occurring simultaneously around the globe, and people just go about their daily routines in other places. Just as we've been told it would be. Our focus is on Bible prophecy, as always.

Global SITREP D8-19: The Quickening

Trochka (NATO Name: SS-21 Scarab) Battlefield Ballistic Missile

UPDATED 22 November 2019: As stated previously on Eschatology Today, virtually all of the unfulfilled pre-70th week prophecies have one of more of their specific aspects observable in the news of the day. This have been true for many months now. What Eschatology Today makes note of now is that many of these prophetic aspects are occurring simultaneously and in a quickening of their occurrences. What had been months between their occurrence was reduced to weeks. in the latter part of 2019 the observation is of days between occurrences. The prophecy of our Lord in Matthew 24:6-8 is staring us all in the face. And as Luke 21:13 says, this is our "occasion for testimony."

The first three days of this work week saw events of prophetic significance. The Syrian's launched the battlefield ballistic missile seen in the image above at a civilian refugee center in Idlib causing massive casualties among most women and children. Surely this has application to Jeremiah 49:23 as it occured precisely in the location noted by the prophet. For illustrative purpose, in the clickable map above one can locate the town of Idlib. South of Idlib is Hamath (Hama), and to the north is Arphad close to the Turkish border.

Iranian missile attack on Israel

The day prior the Iranian launched ballitic missiles assessed now to have been four of the Fateh-110 type Short Range Ballistic Missile (SRBM), each with a 500kg (1,100 lb) high explosive warhead. These Iranian SRBMs were destined for impact in central Israel to cause mass casualties and unprecedented damage. However, Israel's Iron Dome ABM systems brought them down to eliminate that threat. The map above illustrates where the incoming missile alerts were heard in northern Isrel and the Golan. Israel then went on the offensive with the launch of 40 cruise missiles causing very significant damage to Syrian air defenses and the IRGC-Qods Force infrastructure they are intended to defend. Reports and online video indicates that Syria launched S-300s and about half of of them immediately crashed as the Israeli missiles destroyed their controlling emitter antennas. Here we're referencing in-progress or leading into aspects of both Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27.

The earlier rocket fire from the PIJ in Gaza must be seen as being an integral part of the overarching Iranian war offensive against Israel. We have shown recently how the coming IDF ground offensive is tied directly to opeerations against the regions of anceint Edom and Moab in western Jordan according to Isaiah 11:14, echoed by Ezekiel 28:24-26, both of which are integral to the 'big picture' presented by Asaph's Psalm 83.

Iranian protests against Twelver regime November 2019

In Iran itself the nation-wide and inceasingly violent revolt (image above) of the people against the regime (the king and princes) is straight out of Jeremiah 49:34-39. Notice ancient Elam region.The people have taken and destroyed police stations but not before looting their armories. They are well armed now, and have been pulling memebers of the hated Basij off their motorcycles and pummeling them to their deaths in city streets all across the country. Again, these things are taking place simultaneously, concurrently and even at this pace we haven't seen anything yet, but as I&W for what is to come, well, we already know that part in detail per prophetic Scripture.

Valley of Hamon Gog (Multitude of Gog)

In many SITREPs the scripture of Ezekiel 39:11-16 has been referenced concerning the burial location of the vast army Gog of Magog will lead against Israel. Just in case this location has not been identified clearly as being land in present day western Jordan, east of the Dead Sea, this map and its shaded red area illustrates precisely where the Valley of the Passengers, henceforth to be known as the Valley of Hamon Gog (Valley of the Multitude of Gog), exists now and in that near-future time.

Marana'tha!

Global SITREP D8-15: Is This the End of Israel's "Pricking Brier"?

                                                                                                                                   Image attribution: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty

11 October 2015:  In today's edition of YNet.com's Alex Fishman's Israel Opinion column you can see a prime example of how a secular Jew properly puts blame for Arab muslim violence against Israel where it belongs, as well as improperly putting blame for Islamic violence where it does not belong - at the feet of fellow Jews, which he refers to rather antiseptically as "Religious Zionism." 

Mr. Fishman's hand-wringing and galloping, unbridled fear lies not with the next injury to a fellow Jewish citizen of Israel, but with some unknown Arab muslim member of the Knesset - who pledges not one iota of loyalty to the State of Israel, but to islam because that is what is absolutely required of all muslims in the submission to the false god "allah" as dictated by the qur'an and their imams - that the Arab MK might be hit in the head by a rock thrown by a fellow muslim or a baton wielded by an Israeli policeman.

Americans must pay attention here, because a Republican candidate for President of the United States, Dr. Ben Carson, is absolutely correct in what he says about muslim's and the U.S. Constitution - i.e., not one of them can submit to the U.S. Constitution because to do so is diametrically opposed to the quranic dictate of submission (islam) to only "allah" and his will as expressed by the sayings of Muhammed and the sayings of his seventh century followers.

Mr. Fishman does not express any comprehension whatsoever about islamic violence, a/k/a jihad, being waged against Israel. He has no clue that the incitement to violence comes from one origin and one origin only - the sermons of the local imams in the mosques of Israel. He does not understand that the knives have come out of the kitchen because the qur'an says so and the imams preach it every day. Why else are explosives and firebombs kept in the al-aqsa mosque? It is an armory for achieving the will of their false god; all islamic mosques have this same purpose. They are the 'beach head' for the expansion of islam by the sword. This is the "organized leadership" that Mr. Fishman is utterly blind to.

And this non-sense about Israeli officials, who are and act as nothing more or less than the politicians that they are, tip-toeing in expressing their desire for "quiet" - this is what the secular Israeli wants; it's music to his ears. It's also music to the islamists ears as well!

Mr. Fishman wrote in his opening paragraph that "Israel (meaning the Israeli government led by Bibi Netanyahu) should crack down on its own provocateurs, emanating from the Islamic Movement, the Knesset's Arab faction, or Religious Zionism."  Lumping religious Jews in with Israel's implacable enemies - do you see this obscenity coming from Fishman's keyboard? Ignorance defined. 

These religious Zionists have since the destruction of the Temple been praying for Israel's restoration to the land of Israel. Fulfillment of the prophetic word of God, no? Now they pray for the rebuilding of the Temple and restoration of the daily sacrifice and oblations. This is also prophetic, no? Yes! Again, this is prophecy yet to be fulfilled, and we know it will be. We can only pray that Alex Fishman will be one of those Jews to recognize and accept Israel's one and only Messiah; that he may be one of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists soon to spread out across the globe preaching the Gospel of Jesus which will bring millions to God during the 70th Week.

7 October 2015: Israel faces a great many threats at the present time, but the most pressing of them all is the lack of internal security and the safety of its citizens as they go about their daily lives. It is beyond unacceptable, and a possible cause of a government collapse, when the people of Israel find themselves being stoned, assaulted by would-be executioners and hangmen on a daily basis in their own God-given homeland. Who can count the number of Israeli citizens murdered in cold blood over the years by Arab Muslims living in their midst? Eitan and Naama Henkin were the most recent murder victims, but they won't be the last. Against this backdrop of wanton violence against Israelis it is incomprehensible to hear of a high Israeli government official blaming the Israeli citizens themselves for the murderous intent of the "Palestinian" terrorists. According to Israeli media, this is precisely what defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon did recently when he blamed the Jewish Home Party, and Education Minister Naftali Bennett in particular, for the current violence. Apparently Mr. Ya'alon has not been to a mosque recently to hear the imams sermon calling on all Muslims to the most extreme acts of violence against Jews wherever they are, whoever they are - man, woman, child, that is irrelevant - if they are Jews kill them. Sure his intelligence apparatus has informed him better than this, no?

So, how does all of this square with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's recent eloquent speech and dramatic moments of silence at the UN? He pointed a long finger at the entire world whose silence in the face of holocausts and pogroms against the Jews, yet when Bibi's people are murdered, assaulted, stoned, stabbed and fire-bombed, blown up on buses and risk their very lives just to travel across town or to a nearby settlement to visit friends or relatives, it is Bibi Netanyahu who cannot find the words to call for the kind of action necessary to stop the Arab Muslim onslaught dead in its tracks. 

Bibi Netanyahu has the power to stop this insanity in the time it would take him to fly back to New York City. Will he, even in the face of Arab Muslim MKs who will shortly defy the government as their Muslim ideology explicitly requires of them? It is certain that they will not act for Israel, they will act for Islam. Perhaps it will be their action at the Temple Mount this weekend that spurs Netanyahu to act for Israel? However, I never thought it would be such a laborious decision on Netanyahu's part even though that decision will lead to nationwide violence. He stands against the tide of Islamist fervor for jihad against Israel, and for Israel it will be that Netanyahu must ultimately act decisively. Prophecy proves it.

We know from the many inspired prophecies of all the great, ancient Jewish prophets, particularly Asaph, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Nehemiah, that the time is rapidly approaching when an Israeli leader will rise up and act, whether or not this leader is Bibi Netanyahu is irrelevant. This leader will have the archangel Michael lending his hand in the process. Wait and see if these two fairly specific verses below are not fulfilled in very short order exactly as they are written.

Isaiah 11:14

"But they  (Israel) shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines toward the west;
Together they shall plunder the people of the East;
They shall lay their hand on Edom and Moab;
And the people of Ammon shall obey them."

Ezekiel 28:24

“And there shall no longer be a pricking brier or a painful thorn for the house of Israel from among all who are around them, who despise them. Then they shall know that I am the Lord God.” 

 

Babylon and the End of the Age

6 February 2009: Is the Babylon of the Old Testament the same Babylon New Testament Scripture refers to at the ‘End of the Age”? The purpose of this article is to point out why I do not believe the two are to be confused. The original, physical political entity known as Babylon was the original ‘World Empire’ from the Biblical perspective and other is ‘symbolic’ of the global system of government during Daniel’s 70th Week.

Yes, I hold to the interpretation that there will be no resurrection of a physical or historical Babylonian Empire. The Scriptural evidence for this interpretation is the God-given vision of Daniel regarding the statue which began with Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel’s vision of the distant future and the time of the end. That Babylon is gone forever into history and is the fulfilled prophecy of Isaiah 13:20-21.

The God-given sequence of empires thereafter is very specific with each subsequent Middle Eastern empire built upon the ruins of the Babylonian Empire: the Persian Empire, the Hellenic Empire of Alexander and its prophesied division into four rump empires, of which the Seleucid Empire and its Antichrist precursor (Antiochus IV Epiphanes) was most important, and finally the Roman Empire.

The physical destruction of Babylon, as prophesied also by Jeremiah 50 and 51, occurred over many years and was not complete until Seleucia, the new capital of the Seleucid Empire founded by Seleucus I Nicator circa 305 BC was literally built brick by brick from the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. Any Bible prophecy student can look at a detailed map of modern day Iraq and determine that the ruins of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon lies just east of the Euphrates River near the city of Al-Hillah and Seleucia was built in the desert 20 miles south of modern day Baghdad and 70 miles to the northeast of the original Babylon along the banks of the Tigris River. Aside from the geographic differences, Babylon was an ancient Middle Eastern culture while Seleucia was very much a Western Hellenistic culture.

In addition to this we also have Isaiah 13 serving as a central prophetic theme regarding a symbolic “Babylon” and the end times “pains of a woman in childbirth” concurrent with the overwhelming fear that overtakes every man’s heart, and the darkening of the stars in their constellations, the sun and the moon which was repeated by Jesus Christ during his Olivet Discourse found in Matthew 24. Isaiah’s Babylon in this prophecy is a symbolic Babylon representing the utterly corrupt world government system of the Antichrist within Daniel’s 70th Week.

In this day and age it is very interesting to note that Israel, in the form of its military and intelligence services has returned to northern Iraq, in the region known today as Kurdistan and in ancient times as Assyria. The Israeli’s are developing an alliance with the Kurd’s and providing them with state of the art military equipment and training. What the Israeli’s receive in return is copious amounts of critical human intelligence regarding all manner of goings-on within western Iran, northern Syria and eastern Turkey. For their part the Iranians, Syrians and Turks are none too pleased with this alliance. Perhaps it is this Israeli-Kurdish military alliance that Jeremiah 51:6 speaks to with respect to Daniel’s 70th Week, for there appears to be a direct correlation between Jeremiah 51 and Revelation 17 and 18.

In the aftermath of the soon-to-be fulfilled prophecies of Isaiah 17, Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38/39 the global dominant kingdom of the Antichrist shall arise. Since the prophetic word of Revelation came directly from the Father to the Son to John on Patmos, circa 90-95 AD, it most assuredly speaks of future events even to our age, yet given the signs of the times we know the season is upon the world and this future is within the span of this generation. That modern Iraq will fall within the Euro-centric kingdom of “the people of the prince who is to come,” that is out of the two legs standing upon ten toes. This last day’s kingdom of the Antichrist is a revival of the Roman Empire, and the inclusion of modern-day, post Saddam Iraq can be seen in the events that have occurred in the past seven years since 2003 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Iraq is now completely an integral part of the Western sphere of influence and will play a key role in the coming post-paradigm shift of the current world order.