Update on Syrian Government Collapse. Location of Assad.

update 7-19-2012 10am GMT

• Russia & China Veto UN Resolution Threatening Sanctions Against Syria.
• Residents Flee Damascus as Battle Enters Its Fifth Day

Associated Press

• Bashar Hafez al-Assad attended the swearing in ceremony of his new defense minister...so says the state run news agency.

• Reuters claims an official source as saying that Assad has remained in Damascus.

• A Western Diplomat and other sources place Assad in a coastal city of Latakia.

• If Assad is going to use his stockpile of chemical weapons, officials agree that it will happen very soon!

• Israel is most intent on tracking the chemical weapons because of the fear of the chemical weapons getting into the hands of Hezbollah.

--------------------------------------end update------------------------------------------------------- 

points:

1. Russia (Magog) will not agree with the United Nations to impose any sanctions against Syria.

2. The Syrian regime has a massive arsenal of chemical weapons at its disposal.  This is a threat for the whole region.


3. We are practically watching a video about what is written in the bible.

GOG AND MAGOG IDENTIFIED...

" The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal; prophesy against him and say: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks in your jaws and bring you out with your whole army--your horses, your horsemen fully armed, and a great horde with large and small shields, all of them brandishing their swords. Ezekiel 38:1-4

SEE MORE BELOW...

State Department official says 'something' could 'collapse' in Syria soon

Published July 18, 2012

FoxNews.com

Obama administration officials are closely monitoring the intensifying violence in Syria, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warning the situation is "spinning out of control" and one State Department official claiming social media trends indicate "something will collapse" in a matter of hours. 

Following a bomb attack that left several Syrian regime officials dead, a State Department source forwarded to Fox News a comment from another State colleague monitoring social media in the region. 

"Tweet trends on #Damascus indicate something will collapse in #Syria next 36 hours," the message said. "Looks a lot like Tripoli did a year ago." 

The note was a reference to the atmosphere in Libya's capital before Muammar Qaddafi's regime was overthrown, and Qaddafi was captured and killed. 

It's unclear whether Damascus has entered such a period, but the capital saw an unprecedented attack Wednesday on Bashar Assad's regime, when a bomb ripped through a high-level security meeting and killed at least three officials. 

Syrian TV confirmed the deaths of Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general and the most senior government official to be killed in the rebels' battle to oust Assad; Gen. Assef Shawkat, the deputy defense minister who is married to Assad's elder sister; and Hassan Turkmani, a former defense minister who died of wounds suffered in the attack. 

Also wounded were Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar and Maj. Gen. Hisham Ikhtiar, who heads the National Security Department. State TV said both were in stable condition. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, speaking alongside British Defense Minister Philip Hammond on Wednesday, said the escalating violence indicates that the rebels feel emboldened and that the government of Assad is suffering "probably some fragmentation around the edges" as it struggles to keep a grip on power. 

The bombing was the harshest blow to the government's inner circle in the 16-month uprising. 

Hammond and Panetta both stressed the urgency of finding a political solution that results in Assad's exit. 

"The violence there has only gotten worse, and the loss of lives has only increased," Panetta said, "which tells us that this is a situation that is rapidly spinning out of control." He said that is all the more reason for the international community to bring "maximum pressure" on Assad to step down and permit a stable transfer of power. 

Though a U.N. Security Council vote was scheduled Wednesday afternoon on a new resolution that would impose sanctions on Syria's government, that vote was postponed at envoy Kofi Annan's request. 

Meanwhile, the Obama administration slapped financial sanctions on a huge swath of top members in Assad's government, targeting the prime minister and 28 other cabinet ministers and senior officials. 

The Treasury Department announced the sanctions on Wednesday, hours after top Syrian officials were killed in the explosion in Damascus. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/18/state-department-official-warns-syria-regime-could-collapse-in-36-hours/#ixzz2100v2ZYP

Are We in the Final Battle for Damascus?

Posted: 07/16/2012 8:34 am

It has been in the making, as consistently predicted in this blog, and now it is finally happening. The Sunni uprising against the Alawite-dominated regime of Bashar Assad is fast approaching the point of decision. The battles are taking place in the capital Damascus, and the reports, while some may be somewhat exaggerated, are very clear: the rebels of the Free Syria Army are fighting in the very center of the city, are about to be, or already are in control of some of the headquarters of the once feared intelligence organizations, and it is all taking place minutes away from the presidential palace. By some accounts, the palace is without residents, as Bashar and his immediate family have already moved to the Alawite Mountains, something that was also predicted in this blog.

The fall of Damascus, once happening, will not be a nice event to watch on TV. Many nights of long knives will follow, and the violence will be of proportions unknown hitherto in the modern Middle East. Historians will compare the bloodbath to another watershed in the long history of the great city of Damascus, once one of the jewels of the great Islamic civilization. It was in the end of September 1918, and the Ottoman Empire was about to surrender to the Allies. The plan of the British officers who led the Arab Revolt was to make sure that the bedouins loyal to the Hashimite family entered Damascus first and accepted the surrender of the Ottoman governor; but things did not work out that way and a British unit led by a medium-level officer entered Damascus first, and the Ottoman governor surrendered to them. The transfer of power was described as "dignified," but nothing will be "dignified" in Damascus in the next days/weeks/months.

The revenge taken by the victorious rebels will be on a huge scale, so the main questions to be asked now are about the coming days, and what can be done to mitigate the inevitable mayhem. First, we need to mention the people that are likely to suffer most. That being those Alawites who somehow failed to flee back to the mountains; members of the Ba'th party, including Sunnis, who maintained their loyalty to the party on the expense of their communal solidarity; members of the business community, who were very slow to change sides; and members of the Christian community, particularly from Bab Touma, the famous Christian quarter, whose history goes back to the early days of Christianity.

The Christians, though not all of them, have refrained from joining the uprising, believing that the Alawite-dominated regime will be their wall of defense against Sunni domination. Christian rank and file may have joined the opposition, but the clergy, by and large, maintained its loyalty to the regime. The Christian press in Lebanon conducted a lively debate about the issue of Christian loyalty to Assad, and one of the dominant themes was the fear that many Syrian Christians are in danger of being subjected to a long spell of Sunni Winter.

In 1861, Bab Touma experienced a massacre of huge proportions, when thousands were slaughtered. Hopefully, this will not be the case this time. Shi'ite mosques and shrines in Damascus will also be in the line of fire, and altogether it will not be safe for Shi'ites, whether Iranian or Lebanese, to stay in Damascus when the chaos will reign supreme. Two other communities, the Kurds and the Druze, who inhabit large neighborhoods in Damascus, may be spared the wrath of the victorious rebels, and at any rate, unlike the Christians, these are communities which in the past knew how to defend themselves.

And chaos it will be, with the hope that it will not last for too long, and will be under control as soon as possible. The political leadership of the rebels, the Syrian National Council, lacks the power to dominate the situation in Damascus, and it seems more likely that the force more capable of exerting any sort of central authority will be the Free Syria Army, which is not a coherent body but rather a loose coalition of local militias. So, they too may not be able to do the job. The chaos in Damascus may not be that much different than that which prevailed in Beirut in 1975-6. The collapse of the regime will unleash a welter of old conflicts, hatreds and loyalties, which were all subjugated for decades under the yoke of the oppressive regime and will now come to the open.

All the above bodes ill, surely in the short term, and the challenge facing the Syrian opposition, and even more so, the external powers which support them, be it the U.S. or Saudi Arabia or Turkey, will be to use whatever leverage they have in order to prevent the worst possible scenario. Can they do it? They should try, and hopefully there are contingency plans on hand, but the chances of it happening quickly are not too high.

Under these circumstances, the innocent citizens of Damascus are going to suffer. They will rejoice with the final departure of the regime from the city, but they will be subjected to unpleasant situations which will tax to the limit their resilience and endurance.

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-josef-olmert/damascus-syria-uprising_b_1675846.html

Gog, Magog, Israel and Russia 

What role does Islam play in the world? Moreover, what is the outcome of Islam?  These questions continue to come to mind to those who see the conflict between Islam and the West rise.  One cannot help but see the conflicts all around the world, and see the role Islam plays. 

For example, in Europe we see the conflict in Kosovo, in Russia there are the Chechens who are at war with Russia.  In Iraq, we see the battle between Sunnis and Shiites, along with forces from the United States and Europe.  India has a border with Pakistan, both nuclear countries, there are constant rumblings of war, between these nations.  Israel in 2006 had a war with Hezbollah, a Shiite group in Lebanon, supported by Iran and Syria.  Iran  threatens to destroy the Jewish State, and wants to build a nuclear arsenal.

On top of all these openly national conflicts, we have the threat of Islamic terrorism, which affects Muslim countries as well Western countries.  Where is this conflict headed?  For those who study Bible prophecy, the conflict in the Middle East is no mystery, the final battle according to the Bible, Armageddon, is located in Israel. 

 

The miracle of the nation of Israel cannot be under estimated, if one tries to understand these conflicts around the world, and their conclusion. Ezekiel, 2600-years ago, along with the other prophets of the Bible, foretold of a national rebirth of Israel, gathered from the nations (Ezekiel 36-37).  Ezekiel followed this by describing a confederation of nations who would attack a reborn, nation assembled out of the nations in Ezekiel 38 and 39.   This event is known in the Bible as the battle of Gog and Magog. 

The battle of Gog and Magog is an event, which plays a prominent role in Islamic, Jewish and Christian eschatology. 

Although the scenarios have different results, all three faiths see Gog and Magog as a major event. Now just what are Gog and Magog is the subject of this paper.

What is the battle of Gog and Magog?

In short, the battle Gog and Magog is war in the latter days (Last days) when a confederacy of nations attack Israel, which has been restored in the last days.  These nations, which attack Israel in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, include nations, which are Muslim and have a clear animosity to Israel.   Along with these Muslims nations, a northern kingdom, called Gog and Magog, which many identify, as the land Russia, will ally itself with Muslim nations, to oppose Israel in the last days. 

This confederacy of nations comes against Israel, God, who through Ezekiel foretells the event, defeats them.  This conflict establishes Israel and restores them to the land in preparation of their redemption.  The conflict also reminds the world, why Israel went into captivity for the last two-thousand years.(Ezekiel 39:28).

The timing of this event, and what follows is an issue of debate by those who study Bible prophecy.  The battle of Gog and Magog is a seminal event in scripture. It is the transition to the time, known as the Day of the Lord, the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, the Tribulation Period. Scripture reveals the details to those who take the Bible literally.

...

Gog invades in the later day

The armies are enemies of a restored Israel, in the latter years, gathered from the nations of the world and placed back in the land of Israel. (See Ezekiel 36-37)  Israel is described as a land of un-walled villages; the invasion comes from the “far north” and is part of an evil plan against Israel.

7 "Prepare yourself and be ready, you and all your companies that are gathered about you; and be a guard for them.

8 "After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land of those brought back from the sword and gathered from many people on the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate; they were brought out of the nations, and now all of them dwell safely.

9 "You will ascend, coming like a storm, covering the land like a cloud, you and all your troops and many peoples with you."

10 'Thus says the Lord God: "On that day it shall come to pass that thoughts will arise in your mind, and you will make an evil plan:

11 "You will say, 'I will go up against a land of unwalled villages; I will go to a peaceful people, who dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates'

12 to take plunder and to take booty, to stretch out your hand against the waste places that are again inhabited, and against a people gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell in the midst of the land.

13 "Sheba, Dedan, the merchants of Tarshish, and all their young lions will say to you, 'Have you come to take plunder? Have you gathered your army to take booty, to carry away silver and gold, to take away livestock and goods, to take great plunder?' " '

14 "Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog, 'Thus says the Lord God: "On that day when My people Israel dwell safely, will you not know it?

15 "Then you will come from your place out of the far north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great company and a mighty army.

16 "You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes."  Ezekiel 38:7-16

The prophets foretold of Gog and Magog

In the end, the Lord will be magnified in the earth, as the prophets of the Bible (Ezekiel)

are given credit for revealing the
event (vs. 17).  God Himself will destroy the armies, through an earthquake, flooding rain, hailstones, fire and brimstone.
The
 armies will also turn on one another and God will be glorified

in that day. 

17 'Thus says the Lord God: "Are you he of whom I have spoken in former days by My servants the prophets of Israel, who prophesied for years in those days that I would bring you against them?

18 "And it will come to pass at the same time, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," says the Lord God, "that My fury will show in My face.

19 "For in My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath I have spoken: 'Surely in that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel,

20 'so that the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, the beasts of the field, all creeping things that creep on the earth, and all men who are on the face of the earth shall shake at My presence. The mountains shall be thrown down, the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.'

21 "I will call for a sword against Gog throughout all My mountains," says the Lord God. "Every man's sword will be against his brother.

22 "And I will bring him to judgment with pestilence and bloodshed; I will rain down on him, on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, flooding rain, great hailstones, fire, and brimstone.

23 "Thus I will magnify Myself and sanctify Myself, and I will be known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the Lord." '  Ezekiel 38:1-23

God loves the people of the world, many of whom are deceived with a burning rage against the descendents of Israel and the Bible.  In the war of Gog, God’s word spoken through the Biblical prophets takes central stage, as the armies of Islam are destroyed. Moreover, Israel is freed from the Islamic threat, which has existed for the last 60-years. 

Israel uses the remains burns the weapons of Gog for seven-years

Following the defeat of Islam and Russia, Israel uses the weapons left in the land for the next seven-years.  The seven-year period clearly indicates this event occurs before the tribulation, since the tribulation itself is seven years. 

7 "So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let them profane My holy name anymore. Then the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.

8 "Surely it is coming, and it shall be done," says the Lord God. "This is the day of which I have spoken.

9 "Then those who dwell in the cities of Israel will go out and set on fire and burn the weapons, both the shields and bucklers, the bows and arrows, the javelins and spears; and they will make fires with them for seven years.  Ezekiel 39:7-9

What happens to Islam and the Muslim people following Gog and Magog

What happens to the Muslim nations, we can gather from other scriptures in the Bible.  We know the Antichrist, the last world leader before the return of Christ, makes a peace treaty.  This agreement or Covenant is for seven-years, but only last

3.5 before it is broken.

At the start of this covenant, Israel is deceived by the Antichrist, who later turns on the Jewish people, proclaiming himself god, demanding the world worship him.  Prior to this however, the antichrist tries to unify the world, under a single religion.

With Islam defeated as a force, he will begin to persecute all those who refuse to submit to his plans.

The nations on the earth will have a clear choice, having witnessed the destruction of the Islamic alliance; the world will be forced to choose between the God of Israel or a false world leader, who will force the earth to worship him.

21 "I will set My glory among the nations; all the nations shall see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them.

22 "So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day forward.

23 "The Gentiles shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity; because they were unfaithful to Me, therefore I hid My face from them. I gave them into the hand of their enemies, and they all fell by the sword.

24 "According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions I have dealt with them, and hidden My face from them." '

25 "Therefore thus says the Lord God: 'Now I will bring back the captives of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for My holy name

26 after they have borne their shame, and all their unfaithfulness in which they were unfaithful to Me, when they dwelt safely in their own land and no one made them afraid.

27 'When I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them out of their enemies' lands, and I am hallowed in them in the sight of many nations,

28 'then they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who sent them into captivity among the nations, but also brought them back to their land, and left none of them captive any longer.

29 'And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,' says the Lord God."  Ezekiel 39:21-29

The Antichrist, along with the world’s religious leader, the false prophet, force the whole world, to submit to the Antichrist who proclaims himself god.  Muslim’s freed from Islam will have an opportunity to choose the Messiah, Jesus Christ as their savior.

They who know Jesus, during the tribulation will be killed for their, they however will find their way into Heaven, and attain eternal life (Revelation 6:9-11).

SOURCE: http://www.truthnet.org/islam/Islam-Bible/12Gog-Magog-Russia/Gog-Magog-Russia.htm