Global SITREP B8-24: Joshua 13 Northern Arrows (Continued)

IDF Merkava IV MBT entering Lebanon

UPDATED 2 October 2024: In the aftermath of the Iranian Twelver (Shi'a) Regimes ballistic missile attack on the State of Israel, IDF CoS Herzi HaLevi communicated with 4-Star USCENTCOM Commander Eric Kurilla to coordinate a unified response to the attack, even though the attack turned out to be a military failure. It is assessed at this time that the coming unified response will include Iranian nuclear facilities and petroleum infrastructure as well as the depots containing Iran's remain long-range missiles of all types. The price the Twelver regime will pay for its attack will be extraordinary and will eventually lead to its demise.

The attack is assessed to have included 180 ballistic missiles of the conventional Emad and Ghadr designs, and for the first time the hypersonic Fattah-2. Ballistic missiles reach altitudes which scrape the edge of space before descending into the target area. The vast majority were intercepted and destroyed by Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) launched by two US Navy destroyers and Israel's own multi-tiered ABM array. 

Meanwhile the IDF's elite 98th Division continued its push into southern Lebanon on the ground with armor artillery and in the air (attack helicopters). The Israel Air Force has complete domination of the high ground in Lebanese airspace above. The IDF's 36th Division has also joined the combat Operation Northern Arrows in Lebanon.

Screenshot capture of the Israeli strike in Latakia, Syria

UPDATE 4 October 2024: Israel has struck and completely obliterated a weapons depot virtually adjacent to the Russian Khmeimim Air Base in Latakia Province, Syria. 

The information collected thus far is that an Iranian (IRGC-QF) Qeshm Air cargo jet landed at the Khmeimim Air Base with a cargo of weapons for Hezbollah. This would indicate Russia has decided to allow deliveries of this type making them as much a part of the current war as is America in supplying Israel with weapons. Russia can always make the claim that Khmeimim is a Syrian base as its official name is Bashar Al-Assad International Airport. 

The Qeshm Air delivery was subsequently offloaded and trucked to a previously unknown depot in the adjacent town of Jableh which Israel struck within an hour of the weapons arrival. The Israeli strike appears to have consisted of 30-some odd missiles or Harop drones that came in from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, indicating that perhaps this was an Israeli Navy strike. In any event this IDF strike is unprecedented and in, no pun intended, uncharted waters. The weapons depot was destroyed in due course by the weapons cooking off for nearly an hour following the initial missile/drone strikes. 

Probably related is the Syrian Arab League Ambassador Ala request for the League to make a decision tantamount to a declaration of war against Israel to halt the "occupiers'" aggression in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Neither Israel or Russia have thus far acknowledged this action, even though both Russian and Syrian air defenses were reportedly active in trying to engage the incoming Israeli weapons.

 Israel's flag flies in Lebanon

During the 2006 war instigated by Hezbollah the IDF was unable to gain full control of the high ground at Maroun El Ras. The image above illustrates how the IDF has achieved this objective in 2024 by raising the Star of David there in less than a week.

To be continued...

Global SITREP A10:19: In These 'Last Days'

Seen recently on Russian television...

3 March 2019: Been meaning to post this for about a week now, but there've been a couple of real-world disturbances that required some attention. The image above is a screen capture from a program which recently aired on the Russian Government (i.e. state-owned) channel Russia-1. The screen capture clearly depicts a Russian submarine launching a new Russian weapon from the Pacific Ocean against multiple targets in the western United States.

If you're not familiar with this news item, it is the Russian Federations response to the Trump Administration's cancelling our participation in the three decades old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) due to many years of the Russian Federation being in blatant material breach of the terms of the treaty. In comman language, Russia has been cheating so no good purpose is served by the United States remaining the only nation fully adhering to the terms of the INF.

President Trump knows a 'bad deal' when he sees one, so as with serveral other 'bad deals' he identified in the past two years (i.e. NAFTA, Paris Climate Accord, etc.) he pulled the United States of America out of this one too. Sometimes you just have to walk away from a bad deal in order to get a better deal later on. If you followed the news recently, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un also just experienced a POTUS Donald Trump walk out during nuclear negotiations. It's the same principle here with the INF.

However, instead of the Russian Government recognizing the American withdrawal from the INF for what it is, (i.e. a tactic to get a new or better deal regarding intermediate-range nuclear weapons), the Russian's immediately went to threatening the USA with a nuclear Armageddon scenario. The screen capture above depicts this scenario in action - a preemptive nuclear strike on a west coast command and control center and a facility whose purpose is specifically to aid in national recovery from a natural, or as in this case, a man-made disaster. They also announced a list ofsimilar targets on our eastern coast. 

The Russian's, especially those in their government, have learned nothing about American in the past century, especially the fact that we don't take kindly to threats, especially terroristic nuclear threats. The USA takes such threats seriously from the folks who have used WMD like polonium and novichok to poison their expats on forign soil, or invade other sovereign nations (Georgia and Ukraine) on the flimsiest of excuses. 

What kind of Godless villians are in charge of the Russian Federation today? Is it not obvious that such a government as this is the one identified 2600 years ago in the God-breathed prophecy of Ezekiel? And our Israeli friends are intent on playing with fire by trusting Russia and believing in a mutual partnership with them to create security for Israel in Syria. None of this is going to pan out as we know from several volumes of God-breathed Scripture regarding the last days prior to the start of the 70th Week. 

For example. PM Netanyahu recently returned from his face-to-face meeting with RF President Putin. In his weekly briefing to Israel's security cabinet Netanyahu related how Putin agreed on the removal of all foreign forces in Syria, especially those that arrived after the 2011 start of the indigenous Syrian civil war. This statement by PM Netanyahu includes a very special detail that is worthy our attention. 

The foreign forces that must depart from Syria is inclusive of American, British, French, Iranian, Lebanese, Iranian Shi'a proxy forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also as importantly, Russian forces at Tartus and Latakia which are beyond the number which were stationed there in bilateral agreement prior to the start of the civil war. What is missing from the Russian-Israeli foreign forces in Syria agreement is a fail-safe mechanism for its full implementation. Other than that, the agreement is also more akin to swiss cheese than a binding agreement on the status of foreign forces in Syria today. This is problematic and we'll soon see how much.

In these 'last days' we know not how, or what spark or unforeseen event or events will take place, but the whole of Syria won't survive that event or events as it exists today as Isaiah 17:3 and Jeremiah 49:24-26 inform. This current situation, even globally speaking, is what Christian eschatologists have been warning about, particularly since the 1970s to present. Keep your eyes on Christ! The LORD God is in complete control. Marana'tha!

Global SITREP A4-19: Israel's Northern Front Offensive - Part II

Updated 7 February 2019: The importance Eschatology Today placed upon the OSINT reporting in yesterday's update on the S-300 battery going operational at Masyaf has been confirmed via a just updated report published this morning in Israel by i24News: "Operational Advancement of S-300 Mean a Dangerous Junction Ahead in Syria." As stated in the i24News assessment, the use of the S-300 against IAF aircraft striking Iranian military targets, which Israel will strike again as determined necessary, can easily pull the Syrian regime into full-scale war against Israel. We know this potential war as the fulfillment of Isaiah 17 and Jeremiah 49:23-27, and it could ignite, as noted previously, at any moment within the new few weeks. 

Question: Was the shoot down last September of the Russian IL-22 "Coot" ELINT aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea by wildly-firing Syrian air defense batteries a possible fulfillment of Jeremiah 49:23? Is the still impending battle of Idlib, where skirmishes all along the front lines are a near daily occurrence, the "bad news" Hama (Hamath) and Idlib (Arpad) are to hear? Make no mistake, these are the events which Jeremiah's prophecy declares as preceding the destruction of Damascus by an all-consuming fire. Keep watching brothers and sisters.

The second of two expect Iranian rocket launches (read: ICBM tests) has failed.
Sounds like the Lord's breaking of the Iranian bow is in-progress. The current plan is for US forces to be withdrawn from Syria by the end of April.

The US announced today that our military forces are prepared to protect US facilities and personnel in Venezuela if the need arises. Venezuela immediaely rolled out its Russian-made S-300VM air defense system. Massive amounts of life-saving humanitarian supplies (50 metric tons from the U.S. alone) are now building up at the border crossing of Cucuta, Colombia at the request of Interim President Guaido. Supporting Interim President Guaido is important as that will be the most expedient method of getting Hezbollah out of Venezuela. Mass defections of the Venezuelan military to the Guaido forces are increasing by the hour. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

6 February 2019: OSINT reports indicate that Iranian military entrenchment continues with large IRGC and Syrian government cargo aircraft flying continually in a Damascus-Tehran-Damascus circuit. These flights are monitored extensively by OSINT reporting as well as US/Israeli military aircraft as noted below.

The Syrian S-300 battery that arrived from Russia and deployed to Masyaf northwest of Damascus in October 2018 is nearing an operational capability according to satellite imagery acquired by the Israeli company ImageSat International (ISI). The latest ISI image (Times of Israel clickable image below) released yesterday reveals that three out of the four missile canisters of this battery are now standing upright in pre-launch position. The 4th canister tube launcher remains covered by camouflage netting.

In other OSINT news, the U.S. Army has purchased for immediate use an upgraded version of Israel's Rafael/IAI-built Iron Dome Air Defense System. The new block variant has an increased range of intercept from 45 miles to 155 miles. Testing of the upgraded system was done in the United States. Cost: $400 million. For immediate deployment and potential use against Iranian tactical missiles.

There is an increased yet secretive Russian transfer of armored vehicles, howitzers, ammunition and supplies into the Russian-occupied Donbas region of southern Ukraine. 

4 February 2019: OSINT this morning is reporting several US and Israeli intelligence collection aircraft are active over the eastern Mediterranean Sea opposite the Lebanese and Syrian coastlines. The intel collector aircraft involved are two USAF RC-135 Rivet Joint and two IAF G550 SIGINT Nachshon Shavit. There is also IAF activity over Mt. Hermon and a pair of RAF (UK) Tornado GR4 aircraft out of Cyprus.. Inbound large cargo aircraft from Tehran to Damascus are the object of the ongoing intelligence collection. Action of this type has been known in recent time to precede IAF strikes in southern Syria. We'll soon see if the bellicose threats from Tehran and Damascus have been a bluff or not.

A day ago CJTF-OIR aircraft attacked and destroyed a Syrian Army artillery piece and wounded two soldiers in the region just west of Abu Kamal. The artillery piece was identified as firing upon CJTF-OIR ground forces.

Russia recently completed the contruction of 18 hardend shelters for its strike aircraft based at Khmeimim Air Base. The Russians are not planning any soon withdrawal of their forces from Syria; they have a 50-year deal with the Syrian government.

29 January 2019: All indications are that Israel's airborne offensive targeting Iranian bases and supply depots in Syria have caused extensive and severe damage to the three primary enemies, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, and their warfighting infrastructure. If the rhetoric coming from these three enemies in just the past week is to be believed, and there's no reason not to believe them, then the flood of prophetic pre-70th Week fulfillment discussed on Eschatology Today for the past several years may well be just a matter of a few weeks away, if not sooner.

Of interest is the news that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has emerged from a period of virtual invisibility which led to rampant rumors of his death or medical incapacitation. Nasrallah's re-appearance was perhaps forced by the overwhelming success Israel has achieved in its two most recent strikes on Iranian bases in around Damascus, Syria; the preemptive destruction of war materiel destined for delivery to Hezbollah, as well as the destruction of strategic tunnels (Operation Northern Shield) which had been of critical import to their war plans for the coming hostilities. With a matter of just six weeks Israel significantly has altered the battlefield to its great tactical and strategic advantage.

Why is this kind of detail important? It may not be to many readers, but it is to Eschatology Today as it is a real-time record and historical account of the prophetic events that are upon this world.

As stated previously on this blog, the prophetic pre-70th Week wars will come to pass as a flood comes to the unsuspecting village in the valley below. The vast majority of the world today is not concerned with the Lord's prophetic word; this world denies His word and ridicules those who profess it. Think back to the days of early 70 AD as several Roman legions began to invade the land. The Roman legions marched their conquering way in battle after battle, skirmish after skirmish towards Jerusalem, eventually surrounding and laying a siege to the city and its Holy Mount which the Lord's presence had departed at the crucifixion of Jesus Messiah. Is there any written account of that day circa 33 AD in which the writer exclaimed the literal fulfillment of Daniel 9:26? Is there any citing the passing of thirty-seven years between the first two lines of that verse? No, there isn't. The closest writings are the Gospels and the Book of Acts which were written decades after-the-fact. 

So it is today with the majority of those alive on planet earth in utter disbelief of the ongoing process of eschatological fulfillment. There are even those calling themselves 'Christians' who profess denial of these facts known to us and which are progressing forward on a daily basis, just as the Roman legions progressed upon Jerusalem two-thousand years ago. Echatology Today is currently proclaiming that we are nearing the culmination of time in the coming flood of fulfillment. The time remaining is so very, very short. And in a still unknown nanosecond we shall be taken. Hopefully the Lord will allow this and other blogs to remain for the benfit of those to be redeemed during the 70th Week. 

"The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined."

Russia's role in these coming events is on everyone's mind these days. Some believe that Ezekiel 38/39 will be launched from Syria. Eschatology Today has never accepted this faulty theory, and will offer some recent OSINT in support of this position. 

But first, there is a Biblical reason why Gog of Magog will not launch his attempt to conquer and loot Israel from Syria, and it is found in Isaiah 17:1-3. This passage of Scripture directly links the ruination of Damascus, the abandonment of human habitation of the "cities of Aroer," with the end of the miv·tsär' (hold, fenced-in, fortress) of Ephraim (so-called 'Palestinian territory" of the northern West Bank/Judea and Samaria), the kingdom (sovereign government) in Damascus and the remnant of `Aram (Syria). The exsum exegesis of this, as we've discussed previously, is that Syria as we know it today will have ceased to exist. Put another way, Russia's military forces in Syria are, by hook or by crook, going back to Russia prior to Ezekiel 38/39. Additionally, Russian forces in Syria at present are by no means even close to being adequate to fulfill what is prophesied in Ezekiel 38/39.

Now for the real-world OSINT. Russia is in deep, deep economic trouble. This is on the surface a real-world high-probability cause for Gog of Magog to one day soon seek the conquest and looting of the coming 'greater Israel.' Russia has been spending huge sums of currency on modernizing its own military hardware, its military ongoing adventurism, plus the military hardware of Bashar al-Assad in Syria (and elsewhere, like Venezuela) and for which it has not been paid-in-full. But this is all a veneer beneath which lies a Russian economy in an utterly pitiful state. Few in the Russian population believe their current leader can solve Russian problems at home. There are tens of millions of Russians living daily in horrible conditions while the ruling elite of the country bask in luxury. Russia, it could be said, it a Venezuela waiting to happen.

In exsum, Russia today is in many cases in economic worse shape than it was when the Soviet Union collapsed, and no one in Russia has any idea how to put this humpty-dumpty back together again. Eschatology Today believes that Russia, one way or another, will withdraw its meager forces out of Syria and then God will take over to complete the impending collapse as we see in the Ezekiel 38/39 prophecy.

To be continued...

Global SITREP D1-15: The Sinai Peninsula and Greater Egypt (The War of Isaiah 19)

UPDATE 24 July 2015: I decided to bring SITREP A20-13 forward and relabel it as Global SITREP D1-15 because the events that have continued to tear at Egypt make it clear that the Isaiah 19 prophecy remains in the process of literal fulfillment. 

These current events are reported in our media as pitting terrorist organizations such as HAMAS, the Muslim Brotherhood. the al-Murabituun and Wilayat Sinai of the Islamic State against the Egyptian Government, but make no mistake, this is civil war exactly as prophesied by Isaiah 19:2 pitting Egyptian against Egyptian.

The current government of Egypt faces an expanding Sunni insurgency and finds itself in a situation where its closest military ally is actually the State of Israel. Egypt's Egyptian enemies are four-fold, yet the same as they are all Sunni Muslims waging jihad against the State. A brief look at each may serve us as this civil war progresses in the future.

We're already very familiar with the Sunni militants of the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimuun), but we're not so familiar with the insurgent force known as the al-Murabituun. They are terrorists of crossed wires led by a former Egyptian special forces officer who has in recent times been directly linked to both Al-Qaeda and its original Egyptian-born half known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) and the Islamic State in Sinai (Wilayat Sinai). Wilayat Sinai is the former al-Qaeda affiliate in the Sinai, Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, which this year pledged itself to the Caliphate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. There has always been a certain number of jihadists within the Egyptian military as evidenced in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat 34 years ago. And then there's the off-shoot of the Ikhwan in Gaza, HAMAS. These are the Egyptians set against Egyptians of Isaiah 19:2.

Remember this map from September 2014?

So severe is the existential threat facing the Egyptian government that it today extended the long-standing state of emergency declared for Sinai through October 2015. The northern Sinai is a virtual no-go zone for the Egyptian army these days with both HAMAS and Wilayat Sinai in total military control between Al-Arish and Rafah, Gaza. If you will recall, this entire area was offered about a year ago to the PA and HAMAS by the Egyptian government to combine with Gaza for the purpose of creating a territorial state of their own as a part of an overall peace deal following HAMAS' war with Israel (Operation Protective Edge). If you need a memory re-fresh on this particular issue, see the map above which I specifically created for Global SITREP D7-14: THE NEXT WAR.  

The "Next War" has begun. It is the War of Isaiah 19. Some times things take a year or more to come to a point of boiling over and the activities of the Islamic State's Wilayat Sinai along with the other Sunni jihadists in Egypt have managed to do just that. In the end the State of Israel will have to pacify the whole of Sinai as Egypt's military will have its hands full with Islamic State aligned jihadists on the Libyan border and in southern Egypt where yet another insurgency grows.

By the way, Israel will not only have to pacify the Sinai, but they also have a very firm military commitment to defend the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from the Islamic State. The acquisition of this knowledge very recently brought me to a reading of Jeremiah 49 and the realization that the expansion of Israel into Jordan (as is clearly seen in Ezekiel 39:11) is closer than we may currently may think it is.

13 October 2013:  My original assessment below on Egyptian-Israeli military cooperation against the Islamists in Gaza, Sinai and even in the Nile Delta region has been confirmed 100%. 

This confirmation comes via a report issued on October 2, 2013 by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy entitled "Israeli-Egyptian Peace: 40 Years After the 1973 War and Holding."
 

EXSUM OF THE REPORT:

Egyptian Defense Minister Abdul Fatah Sisi, in a reversal of state policy that has lasted since the 1979 peace treaty, has authorized the Egyptian military and intelligence community to maintain direct communications and coordination with their counterparts in Israel.

Previously this type of liaison with had been permitted only through the heavily Islamist MB-staffed Egyptian Foreign Ministry. However, with the purge of the Islamist MB from the ministry and Egyptian government on the whole the Defense Minister directed the military and intelligence community to work directly with Israel due to their shared mutual interest in curbing the terrorist factions that have emerged in Sinai over the past decade, threatening both the Israeli border and Egyptian control over the peninsula.

This liaison is now direct with high-level staffing of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (GID) at the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv. The GID has overall responsibility for maintaining the new relationship and Embassy senior consul is actually the senior resident GID representative. Israel has a reciprocal staffing arrangement in Egypt.  Both nations now have the shared view that HAMAS is a primary threat to the region, the United States under President Obama is not to be trusted, and Iran and its regional proxies are the major threat to the Middle East.

14 August 2013: The interim government of Egypt today declared a "State of Emergency" would exist beginning at 4 PM local time throughout the nation.  Approximately 1,000 Egyptians have been killed or wounded in the most recent hours of the civil war. It appears as if Egyptian security forces responded with lethal force after the Islamists opened fire on them at both the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque and Nahda Sqaure makeshift but fortified protest camps. Both camps were then bulldozed into oblivion by Egyptian security forces.

11 August 2013:  The map of the Sinai Peninsula above illustrates where the southern front of the coming Psalm 83 War, the fulfillment of Isaiah 19 and the subsequent Daniel 11 war of conquest of the Roman Antichrist will be focused.  This most strategic aspect of the entire region can roughly be defined as including the whole of the Sinai Peninsula, the Suez Canal and the Nile Delta. It is further defined by the three major bodies of international water which surround it: the Gulf of Aqaba, the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea.

An Assessment of the Present Situation

The northern Sinai, from Port Said to Gaza along the Mediterranean Sea, is virtually lawless. This is "Lower Egypt." Fundamentalist Islam as manifest in a plethora of Islamic Jihadist groups runs rampant here. The Egyptian military is just beginning to execute an operation designed to bring this area firmly back under the control of the interim government in Cairo. That will require the annihilation of all jihadists out posts in the Sinai. Israeli assistance from an intelligence and mutually beneficial covert military perspective are essential for the success of the Egyptian operation.

Egypt, however, has a bigger problem to tackle than terrorism running rampant in the Sinai. In Egypt democracy, as we understand it, and fundamentalist Islam are mutually exclusive just as they are anywhere on planet Earth. This is just an undeniable fact and the source of Egypt's bigger problem. Through the current events clarifying lens of  Bible prophecy we can see both the origin and the outcome of this problem through the text of Isaiah 19, Ezekiel 29 as well as Daniel 11.

Firstly, Egypt embroiled in full-blown civil war, as described by Isaiah 19, is the only logical outcome of the current situation, just as it has been in Afghanistan and any other majority Muslim country where fundamentalist Islam is not the supreme political determinant.

Secondly, rampant Islamic fundamentalism in the Sinai is not a problem requiring American and/or European Union military intervention at this time. Foreign intervention will occur in the future of the 70th Week.  I believe that the person identified as a "cruel lord/master" (qasheh 'adown) and "fierce king"  ('az melek) in Isaiah 19:4 is a direct reference to the Antichrist who will conquer Egypt during the 70th Week as revealed in Daniel 11:43.

At the present time Islamic jihadism in the Sinai is an Israeli and Egyptian problem. Through their existing peace treaty the these two nations will solve the problem together, or through the Egyptian military's preoccupation with the civil war in the Nile Delta region, Israel will once again impose a security solution in the Sinai exactly as they have done several times previously. Israel will do this not to conquer the Sinai, but to secure it and free the Egyptian military to deal with the bigger problems in Egypt proper. 

Regarding the full map above. Another problem which will distract the Egyptian military is the Ezekiel 28 aspect which is focused along the Nile River, and particularly from the Aswan High Dam (Syene) to the frontier of Sudan and Ethiopia (Kuwsh).  This is "Upper Egypt" and the conflict described in that prophecy appears to emanate from an ongoing Ethiopian-Sudanese project to build a dam above the existing Egyptian High Aswan Dam.

Finally, the long-term aspects of the Egyptian civil war, which will eventually adversely impact essential commercial shipping through the Suez Canal, will force NATO (US/EU) to intervene to secure the entire length of the Canal Zone/Red Sea choke point.  This is, again, the Daniel 11 aspect and it will occur during the 70th Week under the reign of the Roman Antichrist.

What all of this illustrates is just how close this Earth is to the start of the 70th Week.