Everywhere you look war preparations are underway. The Tribulation will consist of many elements, but war will be a constant throughout the Tribulation and we can easily see how the build-up is already beginning:
A coalition of 10 Sunni Arab states is on a military offensive against Shiite Houthi militants in Yemen, recently proclaimed by America’s president as a brilliant example of war on terror, but now catapulting the Middle East into the inferno of battle.
The internal Yemeni conflict has the potential to transform into a military standoff based on religious background between the Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf on one side and Shiites of the region supported by Iran on the other.
The coalition is bombing a country that used to have heavy American presence for years, since Washington used to station a fleet of assault UAVs in Yemen, waging drone warfare against militants of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
Yemen's territory has become increasingly fragmented, with Sunni militant groups operating in the south of the country and AQAP becoming active again.
The base with deployed US killer drones remained operable until last week, when it was abandoned like all other US installations in the country.
Yemen now in many ways resembles Libya, disintegrating after foreign intervention, or Syria, devastated by years of civil war, as fighter jets of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition are pouncing Yemeni military installations and infrastructure facilities.
The meltdown in Yemen is causing embarrassment in Washington, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, Abayomi Azikiwe, told RT.
“It is a very dangerous situation. What it represents is a total collapse of the US foreign policy in Yemen,” Azikiwe said, stressing that it was “clearly miscalculation” on the part of the Obama administration, which underestimated power of Houthi groups.
“It is clearly a failure of the US foreign policy in Yemen,” he said.
Yemen has been marching on a path toward civil war for some time now. The country has fractured into two rival governments: The Iranian-backed Houthis, who control much of north-central Yemen since a late January coup, started sending forces southward earlier this week, while Hadi, who has established a rival government in Aden, the former capital of South Yemen, sent forces north to confront the Houthis. Hadi’s departure leaves only the Houthis in Yemen now.
It doesn’t take an expert to realize that the global fight against terrorism is going badly. With ISIS spreading in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now Yemen, al-Qaeda affiliates still operating throughout the region, and a growing foreign-fighter threat, it’s a matter not of if, but when, something is going to hit closer to U.S. soil. In the meantime, the start of Saudi military operations in Yemen raises the specter of wider regional conflict and is yet another major distraction from efforts against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Apparently, Obama, though he says he hasn’t made up his mind about whether to send weapons to Ukraine, actually has and is. He now seems to be quietly trashing the spirit though no provision in the Minsk II truce that was arranged by Merkel, Hollande, Putin, and Poroshenko, and signed by the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, and both of the rebelling former parts of Ukraine, the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic. Obama now appears to be sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, and thus assisting Ukraine to resume attacking the DPR & LPR.
Even conservative Europeans are expressing outrage. Followers of Italy’s Sylvio Berlusconi, and even the leader of Austria’s anti-immigrant “Freedom Party,” are shocked and appalled by this Obama action.
Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria’s Freedom Party, posted online a photo alleged to be of Bradley tanks now on rail-cars in Linz Austria en-route to Ukraine; he estimated 50 of them.
The leader of the Austrian Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, has posted on Facebook photos showing the first American tanks (approximately 50) traveling to Ukraine.
Strache thinks these are Bradley tanks, entering Austria [from Germany] through Linz. If this interpretation is true, then America would be starting to break, at least formally, the agreements signed by Ukraine and Russia in Minsk.
Four US A-10 Thunderbolt II attack planes are taking part in war games in Poland, as the nation expects about 10,000 NATO forces at drills this year. Moscow says the military build-up at Russia’s borders will have a negative long-term impact.
The A-10 aircraft are based in western Poland, at an airbase in Powidz, where they will be involved in a series of training missions until Friday, Polish army spokesman Artur Golawski said, as cited by Reuters.
The planes – designed to attack tanks, armored vehicles and other ground targets – arrived at the 33rd Powidz Transport Air Base on Tuesday, according to The Aviationist. They followed two C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft.
This week, the air forces of Finland and the US have started joint military exercises, later to be joined by Sweden, TASS reported. The drills are mainly taking place in the skies above the sea, not far from the western coast of Finland, and will also occur in international airspace.
At the beginning of March, six NATO warships participated in naval drills in the Black Sea. The operation, headed by the US, included anti-air and anti-submarine exercises. The 3.5 month series of joint exercises commenced in Bulgaria. About 350 US army officers, as well as US tanks, helicopters and armored personnel carriers, came for the drills.
The US also delivered over 120 armored units, including tanks, to Latvia this month. The country’s defense minister, Raymond Vejonis, welcomed the move, saying on Twitter that “the presence of our allies (US and NATO) in Latvia is a confirmation of solidarity and security in the region."
Russia sees the recent actions as additional proof that NATO is an anti-Russian military bloc that has taken advantage of the Ukrainian conflict, using it as a pretext for a military build-up in Eastern Europe.
“NATO is developing its rapid response forces and is boosting its infrastructure near our borders, we are registering attempts to violate nuclear parity and the creation of the European and Asia-Pacific segments of the missile defense systems is being sped up,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address to the FSB collegium on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich reminded that Russia has all the means to counteract nuclear threats. He said at a regular media briefing that “it’s high time the US renounced destructive unilateral moves in the sphere of missile defense, then there would be no need to worry about their consequences,” TASS reported.
On Wednesday, Russia’s envoy to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, pointed out in an interview to Germany's Das Erste TV that Russia hasn’t substantively increased the number of its military drills, while the military activity of NATO has escalated, “shaping a new military reality.”
“Today’s problem is not Russia’s military activity, but the increased military activity of NATO. Every other day new military exercises take place within the framework of The Readiness Action Plan of the alliance. The number of NATO drills has exceeded 200. The total number of tactical flights of the NATO air forces over the Baltic and Barents Seas, as well as bordering Russia regions last year exceeded 3,000, which is the double number of 2013 drills,” Grushko said, adding that the figures estimating Russian military activities in 2013-2014, along with current activity, have mostly remained at the same level.
Another point of Russia’s concern is the possibility of US weapons deliveries to Ukraine. The conflict-torn country is already facing large-scale international drills instructed by the US this April, which are set to last until November. President Poroshenko said they mean “integration to the biggest defense structure in the world,” Interfax reported.
Did you know that the Russians have a massive underground complex in the Ural mountains that has been estimated to be approximately 400 square miles in size? In other words, it is roughly as big as the area inside the Washington D.C. beltway.
The command center for this complex is rumored to be 3,000 feet directly straight down from the summit of this giant rock quartz mountain. And of course U.S. military officials will admit that there are dozens of other similar sites throughout Russia, although most of them are thought to be quite a bit smaller. But that is not all that the Russians have been up to. For example, Russian television has reported that 5,000 new emergency nuclear bomb shelters were scheduled to have been completed in the city of Moscow alone by the end of 2012. Most Americans don’t realize this, but the Russians have never stopped making preparations for nuclear war.
Needless to say, the Russians are very secretive about their massive underground facility at Yamantau mountain, and no American has ever been inside.
Within the U.S. intelligence community, there was a tremendous amount of debate at that time regarding the purposes of this facility, but what everyone agreed on was that it was going to be absolutely massive…
A couple of years later, a top U.S. general said that he believed that the complex at Yamantau had “millions of square feet available for underground facilities”…
But the Russians have not just been building giant underground facilities deep in the Urals.
They have also been constructing thousands of new underground bomb shelters in major cities such as Moscow.
The following is an excerpt from an RT article in 2010…
Nearly 5,000 new emergency bomb shelters will be built in Moscow by 2012 to save people in case of potential attacks.
In addition, the Russians have also been developing a new anti-ballistic missile system that is designed to keep U.S. nuclear missiles from getting to their targets in the first place.
The U.S. doesn’t have anything like the S-500 that is currently being developed by the Russians. At the latest, it is scheduled to be deployed in 2017, but there are rumors that it is already starting to be deployed today. The following comes from military-today.com…
Frequent visits to the region by high-ranking Russian officials – culminating this week with a four-nation trip by Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov – and rumors of the sale of military aircraft to countries like Argentina and Nicaragua have led to widespread speculation about Moscow's increasing role in Latin America and what this means for relations between the United States and its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.
"U.S.-Russian relations are at a low that we could not have expected at the end of the Cold War," Jason Marczak, the deputy director at Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, told Fox News Latino. "Russia doesn't really have the ability right now to have a real presence in Latin America, but they can spark concern in Washington that Russia is on the rise in the region."
Marczak added that Russia's biggest threat to U.S. policy in the region could come in the form of creating a military power imbalance through its sale of weapons and aircraft to certain countries.
Already rankling hawkish U.S. lawmakers by announcing joint Russian-Venezuelan military drills in the southern part of the Caribbean Sea - near U.S. territorial waters - for later this year, recent rumors of proposed military aircraft sales to Nicaragua and Venezuela have caused many U.S.-friendly countries to worry that they'll be left outgunned next to their Slavocentric neighbors.
"The Russian military's sales to countries should worry the U.S. because it will create a military imbalance in the region," Marczak said. "It could start a small-scale arms race."
Reports that Russia is planning to lease 12 long-range bombers to the Argentinian government has caused concern not only Latin America but across the Atlantic, with the United Kingdom ready to spend about $417 million, or 280 million pounds, to strengthen defense spending in the Falklands Islands during the next decade to counter what the country's Defense Minister Michael Fallon called a "very live threat" from the government in Buenos Aires.
Islamist forces armed and aided by Saudi Arabia are poised for a massive battle in the coming days targeting the Syrian regime and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization, according to Egyptian security officials speaking to WND.
The officials said the Saudis have directed the Islamist forces, including the Al Nusra Front, to lead an imminent counterinsurgency focusing on the Syria-Lebanon border, with particular emphasis on the Qalamoun region.
WND reported earlier this month that Hezbollah in Lebanon believes ISIS is planning major offensives, beginning in April, against the Lebanese army, which has been launching preemptive attacks along the Lebanese border with Syria.
[Update: Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir, announced Wednesday night in a rare news conference that a military campaign had been launched by his country against Iran-backed rebel forces in Yemen, the New York Times reported. The Saudi action is in conjunction with a coalition of about 10 other nations opposed to the advancement of Shiite Houthi forces. Jubeir said the U.S. was not participating in airstrikes. "We will do whatever it takes to protect the legitimate government of Yemen," said Jubeir.]
Now the Saudis are looking to expand their areas of influence by enhancing their support for the rebels seeking to topple the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
While ISIS has received much attention in Syria of late, it has been the Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaida affiliate, that has gained major territory from the Turkish border to central and southern Syria. Al Nusra has also consolidated territory in the Golan Heights, near the border with Israel.
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2 comments:
Reading these stories cause a mix of emotions. Irritation (that we are led by such an absolutely Incompetent, self-absorbed moron), anger, excitement (the call to "come up here" is getting closer), frustration, sadness (what our country used to be), and lastly (and most importantly) peace, God will use the available players, in the current situation, to fulfill his perfec plan. We MUST be close to something.....be it the next birth pang, or the next event. Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus, come quickly.
Thanks for your site....keep on keeping on!
Hoping to meet you all soon!
Yep - I can relate to that range of emotions. Every day. At this point its more resignation - what is to be will be. Its all part of God's will - and the plan is falling into place. We'll see the shadow of the tribulation but thats all :)
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