Pakistan, an ally of Saudi Arabia threatened to wipe Iran off the map; Pakistani army chief
General Raheel Sharif declared Sunday, that any threat to Saudi Arabia will
evoke a strong response from Islamabad. Watch the
video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWICLbjZgw
ISIS is
now referring to themselves as the Army of Armageddon. Gary Stearman explores the use of
Armageddon in the Bible. Watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg3F6uuvoS0Syria and Iraq sitrep Jan. 13, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p38eJgIhTaw
In his final
State of the Union address on Tuesday night, King Obama played down the
threat posed by ISIS to his country and said "over-the-top claims that
this is World War III just play into their hands." He later
mentioned the lesson that the US learned from the wars in Vietnam and Iraq that
the US cannot “try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into
crisis,” calling it "a recipe for quagmire" that "ultimately
weakens us.” He also denounced the recent comments by Donald Trump on
Muslims without mentioning him by name.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
Wednesday, Jan. 13, released 10 US sailors, 9 men and a woman, who were seized
a day earlier with their two patrol boats and held for interrogation as
suspected spies. An IRGC statement read out on Iranian state TV said the
sailors had been released back into international waters after the US had
apologized and clarified the incursion was unintentional. The boats were sized
shortly before sanctions were due to be lifted Friday, Jan. 15.
The Fars News agency, the IRGC’s
mouthpiece, used the term “snooping.” Another Iranian report called the
detained Americans “prisoners.” Administration officials in Washington said the
ships were on a routine mission from Kuwait to Bahrain when they experienced
mechanical problems and contact with them was lost when they “strayed into
Iranian waters.” Other US officials stressed that it is unclear exactly what
happened. When they were captured, the boats appear to have been under the guns
of IRGC commando boats near the tiny Farsi island, which the Guards have closed
off as their base.
In an effort to defuse the
incident, Secretary of State John Kerry called his Iranian counterpart,
Mohammad Javad Zarif, stressed the gravity of the situation and insisted that
the sailors were “going to get out.”
Hours later, the Iranian foreign
minister got back to Kerry with the cool message that the American seamen were
in good health and had not been harmed, but said nothing about releasing them
or the US boats.
Intelligence sources note that
Iran’s act of aggression against the US was orchestrated by the IRGC, like the
provocative test launches of nuclear capable ballistic missiles in violation of
UN Security Council resolutions a couple of weeks ago, and the mob torching of
the Saudi embassy in Tehran and the kingdom’s consulate in Mashad.
Washington initially announced that
sanctions would be applied against Iran over the missile tests, but then
quickly backtracked. The IRGC saw this as offering a clear field to escalate
its anti-US tactics and move from undermining the nuclear accord to a direct
assault on an American target.
Iranian sources believe the ruling
elite in Tehran is in a high state of tension, not only because of the dispute
between moderates and hardliners over the nuclear accord, but also in the
run-up to two elections on the Feb. 26
to the Majlis and the powerful Assembly of Experts, which holds the prerogative
for selecting or removing Revolutionary Iran’s supreme leader. The approach of
these two votes is having an unsettling effort on the Islamic Republic’s
political stability.
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