Watchman Warning: Bully On The Block

Bully on the Block
By Hal Lindsey
 
Early Wednesday morning, the United States Embassy in Syria received a surprise visitor — a Russian three-star general carrying a message. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby explained. “A Russian official in Baghdad this morning informed U.S. Embassy personnel that Russian military aircraft would begin flying anti-ISIL missions today over Syria. He further requested that U.S. aircraft avoid Syrian airspace during these missions.”
 
The U.S. refused to comply and went on with air missions already planned. The Russians went on with their mission, too. Now, two superpowers are flying sorties over the same country at the same time. The escalating danger is obvious.
 
Russia claims to be in Syria to help defeat ISIS, but their real purpose is to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and further ingratiate themselves with Assad’s powerful ally in the region — Iran. Wednesday’s air strikes prove it. They attacked an area north of the city of Homs in Western Syria. ISIS is generally located in the northern and eastern part of Syria.
 
CNN’s Elise Labott reports that “a senior U.S. administration official” told her Wednesday’s air strike “has no strategic purpose” in regard to ISIS.
 
However, it does have strategic purpose in terms of helping Assad. The Los Angeles Times reports, “While Russia announced that the raids targeted Islamic State, the area reportedly hit is a stronghold of other rebel groups, including some affiliated with the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.” In other words, the raids have nothing to do with ISIS, but everything to do with battling the Free Syrian Army and others threatening Assad.
 
According to CNN, the senior administration official speaking to them “said the U.S. had no intention of preventing the strikes.”
 
President Obama met face-to-face with Putin the day before the attacks. Did he at least warn Putin not to hit “the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army”? If so, Putin must have absolutely no concerns about Obama following through.
 
When Fox News broke the story that Russia was asking the U.S. to keep its planes out of Syria during their operation, it added this telling line. “The Russian demand also mirrors one made by Turkey this past July, when Ankara asked U.S. planes to fly only in airspace south of Mosul, Iraq. In that case, 24 Turkish jets bombed Kurdish positions, catching the U.S. off guard.”
 
Turkey’s assault on the Kurds may have caught the U.S. off guard (though it shouldn’t have), but Russia’s action in Syria surely did not. It has been obvious since the beginning of their arms buildup in Syria that the Russians were gearing up for something more than a campaign against ISIS.
 
NATO’s top General, Philip Breedlove, told the press what can be seen at Russian installations in Syria. “We see some very sophisticated air defenses going into those airfields. We see some very sophisticated air-to-air aircraft [fighters] going into these airfields. I have not seen ISIL flying any airplanes that require SA-15s or SA-22s [Russian missiles]. I have not seen ISIL flying any airplanes that require sophisticated air-to-air capabilities. I’m looking at the capabilities and the capacities that are being created and I determine from that what might be their intent. These very sophisticated air defense capabilities are not about ISIL. They’re about something else.”
 
On CNN, Christiane Amanpour played a clip of the general making those remarks, then said, “That could not be clearer. What Russia is doing is not going after ISIS. Russia is going in to prop up Assad.”
 
While her conclusion is accurate, she’s missing something crucial. The general said, “These very sophisticated air defense capabilities are not about ISIL. They’re about something else.”
 
What else could those air defense capabilities be for? They have guns aimed at the sky even though ISIS has no presence in the sky. They have fighter aircraft ready, not to bomb ISIS, but to attack other aircraft. Yet ISIS has no air force.
 
There is a sixty nation coalition supposedly fighting ISIS under the leadership of the United States. But the Russians did not warn other members of the coalition about the attacks. For instance, France recently started flying sorties in Syria, but got no warning.
 
Russia specifically warned two nations — the United States and Israel. That’s who they’re thinking about. Those are the nations that rule the skies in that region. With their action Wednesday, Russia announced to those two powers that there’s a new kid on the block… and he’s a bit of a bully.
 
Meanwhile, ties between key members of the Ezekiel 38 coalition keep growing stronger, and commitments deeper.

With Russia’s Dep. Army Chief due in Israel, Moscow posts 64 S-300 ship-to-air missiles off Syria, N. Israel


DEBKAfile  Exclusive Report  October 5, 2015, 2:18 PM (IDT)




Russia’s deputy chief of staff, Gen. Nikolay Bogdanovsky, accompanied by a large military delegation, arrives in Israel for a two-day visit on Tuesday, Oct. 6, to discuss increased coordination between the two militaries. However, Moscow seems to be sending Jerusalem an altogether different message: Friday, Oct. 2, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the surprise deployment of Navy cruiser, the Moskva, armed with 64 advanced anti-aircraft missiles S-300 ship-to-air missiles opposite the Syrian coastal town of Latakia.

DEBKAfile’s military sources point out that Russia, without saying so publicly, has thus created an effective no-fly zone over most of Syria, most of northern Israel, including the Golan, as well as southern Turkey, for US aircraft based there for air strikes in Syria; Cyprus, the site of British air force bases; and Jordan.


Since 2012, The Obama administration has been discussing the possibility of establishing no-fly zones in northern and southern Syria on a number of occasions, but has shelved the plan whenever a decision was imminent. Now, with one move, Moscow has imposed a no-fly zone over Syria.


The presence of the wide-ranging S-300s means that the Turkish, British, Israeli and Jordanian air forces will need to coordinate their aerial operations in Syrian or Lebanese airspace with Russia, or face the risk of their planes being shot down.
In the view of DEBKAfile’s military sources, the only aircraft capable of evading those advanced missiles are stealth planes. Neither the Israeli, British, Jordanian or Turkish air forces, nor the US squadron in Turkey consisting of F-16 fighters, have such aircraft at their disposal.


The S-300 has a range of 150 kilometers and can shoot down any type of missile, including cruise missiles, as well as planes.


If US President Obama truly wanted to deal effectively with Moscow’s military moves in Syria, besides saying that Russia is bound to fail, he would have ordered the deployment of US stealth fighters to Turkey and Israel. However,may have been held back from this step by fear of antagonizing Iran, which has so far delayed sealing the nuclear agreement with the world powers by putting it to vote in parliament.


The presence of Moskva off the shores of Syria and close to northern Israel creates a new situation that will very likely be discussed in the talks that start Tuesday in Tel Aviv between Russia’s deputy chief of staff and his Israeli counterpart, IDF Gen. Yair Golan.


Although Russian President Vladimir Putin promised Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during their summit in Moscow on September 21 not to allow S-300 missiles reach the hands of the Syrian military, he made no promises about positioning them on a Russian warship in the Mediterranean facing Syria and northern Israel. 
         .
Our military sources point out that Russian air strikes have not been confined to any single area so far, but the injection of S-300s into the war arena widens the Russian air force's options.


In an interview with CNN on October 4, Prime Minister Netanyahu described how the Russian operation in Syria had affected relations with Moscow. "We don't want to go back to the days when, you know, Russia and Israel were in an adversarial position,” he said. “I think we've changed the relationship. And it's, on the whole, good.” He added that Israel’s close relations with the US were in a completely different and special category.


When asked whether he thought Russia’s intervention would cause instability in the region, he seemed to avoid giving a detailed response, only saying, “I don't know. I think time will tell”.


However, on the topic of the transfer of advanced weaponry to Hizballah, the prime minister was very clear. ”If anybody wants to use Syrian territory to transfer nuclear weapons to Hezbollah, we'll take action,” he said.


It marked the first time for an Israeli prime minister to speak publicly on the possibility that the terrorist organization could acquire atomic weapons. 

When they say the Free Syrian Army do they mean Al-CIA-da, our allies?

Anyway guys, this is not Gog and Magog, not even close. This is the beginning of the alliance between the lion, the leopard with wings of a foul, and the bear, who will later form a coalition known as the beast.

Most likely it is the US who will knock Iran down and divide Israel and shortly thereafter fall due to a bad reputation/bad press, not to mention God’s anger over the dividing. Babylon falls, the beast rises, a new Babylon. Gog and Magog doesn’t take place for quite some time after that. Read Ezekiel 32-38 - in order. Read Daniel 7 and 11, with understanding.