Global SITREP C10-14: Current Events and A Critical Moment Dead Ahead

16 June 2014: As strange as it may seem to some, the sectarian inter-Islamic war pitting Sunni Muslims against Shi'a Muslims has a particularly strong potential to become a catalyst for the fulfillment of last days Bible prophecy, and thus the destruction of Islam itself.  While we, the Bride of Christ, are forthrightly focused on our own eschatological issues and are watching events as instructed by our Lord, it is also important to realize that Islamic eschatology, particularly that of Shi'a Islam in the Islamic Republic of Iran can play a key role in precipitating the events that are about to occur.

I suspect the government of Israel is keenly aware of the threat they face. I am writing this to inform you of the specifics of that threat. Even though it now appears that the Iranian government is focused on maintaining Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in supporting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, and most recently in now deploying their elite Qods Force and Basij militia to prop up the Shi'a puppet regime in Iraq, the fact of the matter is that the greater threat is the one that Iran now poses to Israel.

The Iranian regime, from the get-go in 1979, has been driven by their Shi'a eschatological beliefs. In fact, Shi'a eschatological beliefs constitute the driving force of Iranian foreign policy as well as their pursuit of nuclear weapons. While many anxiously await news of an Israeli preemptive strike against the Iranian nuclear program, the specter of a possible imminent Iranian surprise attack designed to wipe out Israel is just as likely in the very near term, primarily because it is driven by the fervently held eschatological beliefs of the current Iranian Ayatollah and his Council of Experts and the mullahs running the day-to-day affairs of the regime.

Iranian Shi'a eschatology holds that the al-Mahdi, also known as "Imam Zaman," will appear during battles in Iraq. According to Shi'a beliefs those battles, potentially self-fulfilling as they could be made to be, are said to occur imminently in the southern Iraqi cities of Karbala and An-Najaf. The Ayatollah believes, and has publicly announced, that he, personally, is the one eschatologically known to the Shi'a believers as "Seyed Khorasani," and it is his personal mission to facilitate the arrival of the (for our purposes fictional) al-Mahdi. In order to fulfill this express purpose he must take specific actions that will change the face of the Middle East. The primary and most important change that must take place prior to the appearance of the (for our purposes fictional) al-Mahdi during battles in Iraq is the destruction of Israel.

One need not think too hard to consider the immediate Israeli reaction to seeing Iranian missiles being readied for launch, or those of Hezbollah, or of Syria or HAMAS in Gaza for that matter. I think we are all well aware of the potential for several prophecies to come into their fulfillment due to Iranian military actions driven by their eschatology. Jeremiah 49:34-39, Isaiah 17 and Psalm 83 come immediately to mind for starters. I think we all can see the makings of "a perfect storm" being generated by such events and that they could very easily occur without any warning at all. Just like Noah's flood.

The critical moment in all this lies directly ahead of us. We know that time is short, and we know that at any moment, like a thief in the night, we could hear the shout of the Lord descending from Heaven like the voice of an archangel and the trump of God commanding us to "Come up hither!"

Marana'tha!

18 June 2014: This is the massive Baiji Oil Refinery complex located a little over 110 miles north of Baghdad, Iraq. ISIS began assaulting the sprawling refinery last night. Reports coming out of Iraq are inconclusive about exactly what is the current situation today. Some say that following a night-time shelling Sunni ISIS forces entered the complex extending their direct control over nearly seventy-five percent of the refinery. Other less credible sources (Iranian) say Shi'a government forces have repulsed the assault. What is absolutely certain is that the refinery is shut down, no production of fuel is coming from it. A British company evacuated foreign oil workers just prior to the start of the assault. The sad news is that gasoline prices will spike for foreign consumers even though the Baiji gasoline product is not sold in the US but is solely for domestic Iraqi production. Any excuse is good enough for oil companies to take more dollars from our wallets at American gas pumps.

Now, to borrow a phrase from New Orleans-based chef extraordinaire Emeril Lagasse, it's time to kick this up a notch or two.  BAM!

The carnage that is occurring in Syria and Iraq in this war, but especially in Iraq, can only be described as mind-numbing barbarism. However, true to the so-called main stream (lame stream, actually) media's political correctness, there is an on-going, deliberate, editorially-directed from on high spin involved in the refusal to truthfully report the near routine day-to-day carnage of Islamic violence in these countries. Heaven forbid the cold hard truth about Islamic jihad be reported to John and Jane Q. Public in America. So, the  official lies are flowing as fast and furious as they can be issued in order to present this war as antiseptically as possible. Even former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let slip in a recent interview on a national news program interview that the elite in our government are tightly controlling what is being reported in print or in video. The "religion of peace". Not.

Secondly. We must pray for our Marines and other armed forces personnel who are deploying into the war zone. Pray hard in fact. If you think the Al Qaeda assault on our consulate and CIA not-so-safe-and secure house in Benghazi, Libya was bad on the anniversary of 9/11, wait until the US Embassy Baghdad is subjected to a similar onslaught, lies and hindquarters cover-ups. Our President has a demonstrated and proven history of abandoning anyone and everyone he sends into harms way. And sending our Marines into Baghdad and not evacuating State Department employees is for exactly the opposite purpose of making it appear that Obama is not weak. These things are being done for the purpose of creating a body count that will make Benghazi pale in comparison. A few hundred American defense contractors got out of Balad AFB in Iraq by the skin of their teeth in the past few days. Obama was busy playing golf and making sure the US Air Force was stood down and unable to provide air cover for our contractors escape. Send in the Marines?

This and more is what you are not being told by a lapdog media as well as a feckless Congress who quite unambiguously do not know the first thing about impeaching a US President guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. God bless America. Please.

NEWSFLASH: The State of Iraq is Dead says former DIRCIA General Michael Hayden

19 June 2014: The former DIRCIA General Michael Hayden was on the Steve Malzberg syndicated radio program when he informed the host and his listeners, "The state of Iraq as we know it is gone, and it's not going to be reconstituted.  It's certainly not going to be reconstituted by [Prime Minister] Nouri al-Maliki.''   Those who read Bible prophecy probably saw this coming because 3,000 years ago the singing prophet Asaph referred to it as Assur in Psalm 83, even though the contemporaneous ancient state of Babylonia lay to its immediate south. So, Asaph was inspired by the Holy Spirit to include Assur in his prophecy but not Babylonia. There's a very good reason for that as the world will soon find out. 

 Weapons of Mass Destruction

Update 20 June 2014:  Before this entry becomes too long and bulky I will make this final (no pun intended) bullet-laden update with a view towards illustrating the key prophetic elements addressed either directly or peripherally by the current events in the inter-Islamic war between Sunni and Shi'a.

• The carnage of this war will continue and almost certainly increase by orders of magnitude as weapons of mass destruction become employed by both sides seeking a decisive victory over their foes. The enemies in this war are very heavily influenced by demonic forces unseen by the human eye but whose evil presence is all but palpable by those who've physically been in that region. The devastating PTSD that our brave soldiers come home with is a direct result of the evil presence resident in the Euphrates. So, be ever mindful that there are four fallen angels which have been bound in the Euphrates River since time immemorial as we know from Revelation 9:13-21 and Jude 1:6 who will remain there until the appointed hour on the day, month and year during the 70th Week upon their release to kill 2 Billion humans beings with the plagues of unrestrained weapons of mass destruction warfare. 
• The prophecy of Psalm 83 is the key element in understanding the sequence of prophetic wars that must take place prior to the advent of the 70th Week. Without a solid understanding of this very specific prophecy one cannot fully comprehend the coming series of of "birth pangs" which will primarily shape and make extant the political, religious and militarily divided world that will exist on day one of the rapidly approaching 70th Week. Psalm 83 omits any mention the nations known since ancient times as Aram (Syria) or Persia (Iran) but who are today key players in the continuing Arab Islamic war against Israel. Psalm 83 mentions only one location, Assur, as a participant among the 9 other specifically identified enemies that will come against Israel from present-day and geographically bordering locations in Lebanon, Jordan, the so-called West Bank, Gaza and the Sinai. The ancient land of Assur is currently the land in modern-day northeastern Syria and northern Iraq that has come into possession of the Sunni Islamists. The lack of any mention of Iran (Persia/Elam) in Psalm 83 also bodes badly for their Shi'a brethren in Lebanon and Alawi cousins in Syria, and the reason for that is the next bullet item.
• The prophecy of Jeremiah 49:34-39 clearly indicates that part of present-day Iran where the bulk of that nations nuclear weapons program currently resides as well as its ethnically Arab (non-Persian) population. The text of this prophecy is completely unambiguous regarding what will occur here. Ancient Elam also encompassed the southeastern part of present-day Iraq which is home to the overwhelming majority of the country's Shi'a Muslim population. This prophecy makes clear that great catastrophe will cause these populations to flee to all points of the globe and that the Lord will pursue against the Iranian regime with a sword (war) wielded from all directions of the compass in bringing tactical dismay and disaster against them.
• The prophecy of Isaiah 17 is also directly related to the ongoing Sunni-Shi'a war,  as is the also unfulfilled prophetic text found in Joshua 13. As clearly indicated in both of these prophetic texts, while they speak to the present-day nations of Lebanon and Syria, the territory east of the Jordan River in the northeastern corner of the present-day Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is also clearly referenced as is the present-day inheritor of them all: Israel.

 Marana'tha!

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

Update 09 January 2014: In the past 48 hours Iraqi government sent a relatively light force of combined security and military units on a mission to enter and recapture Fallujah from Al Qaeda's forces. These Iraqi government forces were easily repulsed by the several thousand members of the Al Qaeda ISIS brigade holding Falluja.

It has been revealed that Iraqi government heavy-handedness against local tribesmen involved in a protest of their grievances against the pro-Shi'a government in Baghdad was the cause of a revolt by the citizens of Falluja on 30th of December. Al Qaeda seized upon this situation to turn it into a full-fledged reconquest of the city previously taken by US military forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom and handed over rebuilt to the government in Baghdad just two years ago. The Al Qaeda forces were buttressed by several hundred of their own which had been freed from Iraqi government prisons at Abu Ghraib and Al-Taji in major military-style jailbreak operations during the summer of 2012. Senior Al Qaeda leaders and hundreds of combat-hardened fighters were released in the twin operations.

The loss of the main junction of Highways 10, 11 and 12 west of Baghdad now not only threatens the stability of the current Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, but it also represents a significant strategic blow to Iran. Those highways are a direct link from Baghdad and the International Airport to Syria and Damascus, and they had been an important overland pipeline for Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps troop support to Bashar al-Assad in Syria.  Now the Islamic Republic of Iran is offering Iraq the use of those troops to retake this strategic corridor. One can just image the reaction of the local Sunni tribes and family clans in Anbar province to the notion of Iranian troops being used against them by their own government. We'll keep an eye on this for sure.

4 January 2014: The Shi'a led government of Iraq and its premier 7th and 1st army divisions have been handed an utterly crushing military defeat at the hands of the Sunni-led Al-Qaeda forces (ISIS) in Iraq's expansive and westernmost Anbar Province.  Yesterday the combined jihadists forces of ISIS/ISIL raised Al-Qaeda's black flag over the city of Falluja on the Euphrates River, approximately 20 miles from Baghdad International Airport and the city of Baghdad itself.

Further to the west these same Sunni jihadist forces are literally on the verge of capturing the city of Ramadi. Remnants of both the 7th and 1st armies were last seen retreating in complete disarray towards Baghdad, leaving vast amounts of heavy weapons abandoned in their wake. At this point virtually nothing except the 300-some odd miles of open desert expanse stands between these Sunni jihadist forces and Damascus, Syria. Only an air bridge now connects Iran with its Syrian and Hezbollah allies.

The Sunni-Shi'a War is now synonymous with the three formerly distinct civil wars going on in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, or literally, from Baghdad to Beirut. There is no question that more intense land warfare will engulf the region. This is the net result of the incompetent policy of the rapidly imploding Obama Administration known as "Operation New Dawn" in 2010.

30 December 2013: As noted in the 24 December portion of this article, more than half of Iraq's territory is today Al-Qaeda's (i.e. Sunni Jihadist Islam) playground, as Iraq's 7th Division commanding general learned the hard way and the Iraqi Defense Minister nearly did a week ago. Sunni Iraqis have zero love for the Shi'a-led government in Baghdad, so they view the Al-Qaeda insurgents either with indifference or as a buffer between themselves and the Shi'a. 

Lessons were recently learned despite the Iraqi military's rampant ineptitude, logistical incompetence and combat ineffectiveness. Accordingly, Iraq has requested and will receive from the US inventory at some point in 2014 or 2015, due to the aforementioned incompetent logistics, a total of 10 each ScanEagle and 48 each RQ-11 Raven UAV drones with which they hope to keep an eye on the movements of insurgent AQ fighters. Last week Iraq received 75 brand new AGM-114 Hellfire missiles which have been adapted to the Iraqi Air Force's 5-year old militarized Hawker-Beechcraft King Air-350ER twin-turbo prop attack aircraft. The Iraqi King Air-350ERs did successfully strike four different AQ camps on the Syrian-Iraqi border with the Hellfire missiles in recent days. How much damage was done to those camps is the subject of some debate.

The US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) is to provide the current government of Iraq with $4 billion in hardware and other war materiel in contract sales announced in July of this year. Half of that figure is for a total of 40 Avenger truck-mounted anti-air systems which fire Stinger missiles (nearly 700 Stinger missiles are part of the sale) and 3 Hawk anti-air missile batteries with over 200 Hawk missiles. This begs the question: Has Al-Qaeda recently acquired an air force in Iraq or are the air forces of friendly governments in neighboring Syria and Iran now posing a significant threat to Iraq? 

The other materiel going to Iraq in this sale includes: 50 General-Dynamics Nuclear, Chemical and Biological (NBC) weapon detection vehicles based on the Stryker combat vehicle platform along with a 5-year maintenance contract that will include additional maintenance services for M88A1 and M88A2 Hercules armored and main battle tank recovery vehicles, M113 Personnel Carriers, assorted Howitzers and general purpose Humvees. Iraq will also begin taking delivery of F-16 strike aircraft in late 2014-early 2015 according to the current schedule.

Again, this begs a question: Is this the type of American military inventory that the Shiite-led, Iran-friendly current government of Iraq needs to kill off Al-Qaeda. Of course this assumes the current government of Iraq survives the threat Al-Qaeda poses in over-running Iraqi government forces.  Nevertheless, and whatever the case may be in the near future, it sure seems to me that this type of heavy hardware would be far better suited for utility in the Psalm 83 scenario, particularly as detailed in verse 8.

24 December 2013: In the news from the still very active battlegrounds of Iraq is a powerful reminder in support of my interpretation on the identity of those named in verse 8 of Psalm 83: "Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot," and how they will constitute the ideological, political and military strength (Heb: H2220 zĕrowa`) provided to the modern-day Jordanians (Ammonites and Moabites) in the ultimate fulfillment of this prophetic psalm. This region of modern-day Iraq seen in all of the salmon-colored and striped-shaded areas of the map above was the central and original homeland of ancient Assur circa the psalmist Asaph's time 3000 years ago. Today it is a region of Iraq that is fully controlled by the Islamic jihadists of Al Qaeda, or as they refer to themselves, ISIS or "Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (Syria)." 

Here we have the ignominious net result of President Barack Obama's incompetent, hasty and ill-advised order for the total disengagement of US combat forces in 2010 through "Operation New Dawn" prior to a truly stable Iraq being realized in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom. These Sunni jihadist forces also comprise the preeminent armed opposition fighting the Ba'athist regime of Bashar al-Assad to the west in Syria. Note that when US and Coalition forces were engaged with these Sunni jihadists they were referred to as "insurgents."  Now this same force of Sunni jihadists fighting in both Iraq and in Syria are referred to merely as "rebels" and have received considerable assistance from the United States during Barack Obama's tenure as president - be they engaged against the regime of Muammar Khadafi in the Libyan civil war of 2011 or the current Syrian civil war of 2013. Obviously, the Obama Administration's "Operation New Dawn" was an abject failure as far as military operations go, ceding a country the size of England and Wales combined to the enemy.

In Iraq's western province of Anbar, in its western city of Ar Rutbah, the gateway to Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia from central Iraq, and the last Iraqi hub of the now defunct Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline (image above), Gen. Ahmed al-Kurwi, the commanding general of Iraq's newly-minted 7th Division, his staff and several senior Iraqi Army officers were ambushed by a trio of ISIS bombers in the midst of an inspection tour following what they had believed was a successful operation against ISIS.  More details can be found here at "The Long War Journal.Org" daily blog. Nearly at the same time AQ attempted an ambush assassination of Iraqi Defense Minister Saadun al-Dukaimi's convoy between Falluja and Ramadi. Al-Dukaimi escaped the attempt on his life but his security escorts were not so fortunate. We will be watching as this situation continues to develop with the final group of the Psalm 83 confederacy now firmly identified. I also have the expectation that the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 17 will cause a major divergence in the course of the ongoing Sunni-Shi'a inter-Islamic war; a divergence that would unite for the Psalm 83 purpose of destroying Israel the inner-ring nations of the Arab League with the Shi'a-Hezbollah of Lebanon. "Wars and rumors of wars" continue apace; these things "must take place."

Global SITREP A14-13 Special Edition: Christ in Prophecy TV Presents: 'The War of Psalm 83- Past History or Future Prophecy'

L to R: Dr. David Reagan, Bill Salus, Nathan Jones on the set of Christ in Prophecy TV

20 June 2013: Since the last Global SITREP was posted we have witnessed the defeat of the heavily out-gunned Sunni rebel jihadist forces at the near-epic siege of al-Qusayr, Syria by a coalition of Alawite-Shi'a forces from Bashar al-Assad's rump national army and air force, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian IRGC troops North Korean military advisers were also reported to have been in the mix on that side of the battle. This was followed immediately by ominous military movements occurring on both Israeli and Syrian sides of the Golan no-mans-land, and by an extraordinary meeting of 19 Islamist scholars of the Sunni Arab League and Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi in Cairo, Egypt which resulted in Mursi accepting the Islamist scholars diktat and the immediate the breaking of diplomatic relations between Egypt and Syria and a de facto declaration of war between Egypt and Hezbollah. Accordingly, Egypt, as the leader of the Arab League, has abandoned its embassy's functions in Damascus and closed the Syrian embassy in Cairo. The Islamic scholars also read Mursi the proverbial riot act regarding the tremendous Shi'ite threat to Sunni dominance in the Middle East, particularly in the Levant, and that all Iranian ships must be banned from transiting the Suez Canal which are enroute with arms for the Syrian regime.  The Arab League can now be expected to strike at Iran's Achilles heel through the 20 million Sunni's who live within the Islamic Republic. In addition to all of this action, battle lines are also being drawn between the US-led NATO alliance in Europe who support the Sunni's and the Russian Federation and its allies who support the Alawite-Hezbollah-Iran military confederation.

Against this backdrop I would now like to present the most recent edition of the Lamb & Lion Ministries Christ in Prophecy TV program. In this program Dr. David Reagan and Nathan Jones discuss the Psalm 83 War with author/lecturer Bill Salus (Isralestine, Revelation Road:The Missing Prophecy Revealed). On this program they interview Bill Salus about the War of Psalm 83. Some say this war was fulfilled in past history, but Bill points why that’s not the case. Additionally, David, Nathan, and Bill answer all the other questions about the timing of Psalm 83, like is it part of Ezekiel 38 or the Armageddon scenario. Some have suggested that this may be one of Bill’s best TV interviews, even though he was feeling a bit under the weather that day in the studio.

Click HERE to watch this informative Christ in Prophecy TV show.