JV Team Goes Pro

By Dr. Steve Elwart

When you hear of wars and revolutions, never be alarmed, because these sort of things must take place first, but the end won’t come right away.

— Luke 21:9 (ISV)

In a case of what can best be called incredibly bad timing. Just hours after U.S. President Barack Obama called the terror group he described as a “JV team” as “contained,” ISIS claimed responsibility for the devastating attacks against the nation of France.

As of this writing, at least 129 people were killed in a series of simultaneous assaults Nov. 13, attacks that were claimed by the terror group ISIS. Several venues were besieged at the same time in the French capital and near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, near Paris.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility Saturday for the catastrophic attacks in the French capital, calling them “the first of the storm” and mocking France as a “capital of prostitution and obscenity,” according to statements released in multiple languages on one of the terror group’s encrypted messaging accounts. The remarks came in a communique published in Arabic, English and French on the Islamic State’s account on Telegram, a messaging platform, and then distributed via its supporters on Twitter, according to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda.

The statement read in part:

Eight brothers, wrapped in explosive belts and armed with machine rifles, targeted sites that were accurately chosen in the heart of the capital of France, including the State of France during the match between the Crusader German and French teams, where the fool of France, François Hollande, was present. Let France and those who walk in its path know that they will remain on the top of the list of targets of the Islamic State.

ISIS said the attacks were in response to airstrikes against militants in Syria and Iraq and insults to Islam’s prophet.

Several ISIS supporters celebrated the terror attacks using the hashtag #ParisIsBurning. While many of the tweets have been deleted, one said: “God is great and thank God for these lone wolf attacks. At least 100 hostages and countless wounded.”

Among the other tweets (tweets shown as written):

• #ParisIsBurning.This tweet was sent from the Kuwait port of Mina Abdulla, according to Twitter’s location settings.
• Oh God, burn Paris as you burned the Muslims in Mali, Africa, Iraq, Syria and Palestine.
• Some even boasted London, Rome and Washington DC would hit by the next horror attacks.
• #ParisIsBurning today and Palestine has been burning since years
• #France and the french ppl didnt seem to think twice about joining the kill campaign led by the US, why should I care when #parisisburning

A suspended Twitter account affiliated with the Islamic State allegedly tweeted about the Paris terrorist attacks before they began and said that Rome, London and possibly Washington, D.C. are next.

French President Francois Hollande said the attacks were organized from abroad “by Daesh,” a pejorative Arabic acronym for ISIL, “with internal help.” He described them as “an act of war.” The attacks were the deadliest to occur in France since the Second World War and the deadliest in the EU since the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

President Hollande has also declared a three-day period of national mourning and convened Parliament for Monday in Versailles. One of the perpetrators of the assault on the Bataclan Concert Hall has been identified as a 29-year-old native-born Frenchmen. (Eighty-nine of the 129 people killed in the multiple attacks were killed in the concert hall.) His father and his brother were placed Saturday night in custody.

Sequence of Events

The series of highly coordinated attacks, took place in several locations, involving different methods. At least five locations were targeted by gunmen and suicide bombers. Paris Police said the attacks occurred at the following locations:

• Stade de France (National Stadium) in Saint-Denis, north of Paris
• La Belle Equipe bar on Rue de Charonne in the 11th District
• Le Petit Cambodge restaurant on Rue Bichat in the 10th District
• Avenue de la Republique in the 10th District
• Bataclan Concert Hall on Boulevard Voltaire in the 11th District

First, two suicide bombers self-detonated near the Stade de France, where a soccer match between France and Germany was taking place where President Hollande was in attendance. At the same time, several gunmen armed with Kalashnikov rifles fired on a crowded Cambodian restaurant in a drive-by shooting. Shots were also fired at the Bataclan concert hall, which later turned into a hostage situation.

About 30 minutes later, gunmen also fired on the Rue de Charonne. Attacks by other terrorist cells took place at the Louvre and Les Halles about one hour after the first attacks.

An Expected Outcome

In retrospect, these attacks are not surprising. As with other countries, France has had many individuals travel to Syria to join extremist groups there. As can be seen with the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack, Europe has always been at risk from terror attacks.

While recent arrests suggest that homegrown terror was a significant factor in the assaults, other factors also seem to indicate that recent refugees from Syria may have also played a part in the events in Paris. The discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one suicide attacker seems to show some of the assailants might have entered Europe as part of the huge influx of people fleeing Syria’s civil war.

Greek and Serbian authorities have confirmed the passport was issued to a man who registered as a refugee in October on the island of Leros and applied for asylum in Serbia a few days later.

But, surprisingly, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has urged EU countries to take in more refugees, said there was no need for a complete look at of the bloc’s policies. “Those who organized, who perpetrated the attacks are the very same people who the refugees are fleeing and not the opposite,” he said.

This attitude flies in the face of the citizens of the host countries who have to absorb the almost 700,000 asylum seekers from Syria streaming into Europe since 2011.

The announcement of a timetable for Syrian peace talks (under Russian auspices) by U.S. Secretary of State Kerry on the heels of the Paris attacks also lend credence to the idea that peace in Syria may also lead to a dampening of further violence in Europe by slowing down the refugees coming into Europe who also give cover for ISIS terrorists coming in as well.

Also while addressing his nation, French President Hollande said that the country will close off its borders. The French government will also begin locking down the city, protecting civilians and capturing the attackers. France will also close down its transportation system and borders to prevent any of the perpetrators from escaping the country. Notably, Hollande has officially declared a state of emergency.

By Sunday, Belgian officials said they had arrested seven people in Brussels. But one of the people who had hired the cars slipped escaped arrest. He was pulled over on the French-Belgian border Saturday, but later released. He is being hunted by French and Belgium police as well as Interpol. Police named the man they were seeking as Salah Abdeslam, saying the 26-year-old was “dangerous.” Although he was born in Brussels, French authorities said he was a French national.

The Aftermath

During his address to the nation, President Hollande vowed:

“We will lead the fight and we will be ruthless, and we had to be here among the people who were subject to these atrocities because when the terrorists are capable of doing such acts they must know that they will face a France very determined — a France united.”

The attacks have political and military consequences. They come five days before France’s only aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, is due to set sail for the Persian Gulf for actions against ISIS. The Islamic State taking credit for the attacks will most likely deepen France’s involvement in Syrian operations at a time when the world seems to be united in destroying this terror group.

Some wonder how serious Paris is about their military commitment in the region. France has long been the butt of frequent jokes about its military prowess, or lack of it. People seem to forget that it was France that gave the world Napoleon, the French Foreign Legion, not to mention the French Underground during the Second World War. They also need to recall the Frankish leader Charles Martel who defeated a massive invading Islamic army led by Emir Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi Abd al Rahman, near the City of Tours, France in 732 A.D. This battle stopped the northward advance of Islam from the Iberian Peninsula, halting the Islamic conquests, and preserved Christianity in Europe, during a period when Islam was overrunning the remains of the old Roman and Persian Empires.

French Jet Fighters Prepare to Attack ISIS in Syria. (Reuters)

The immediate response from Paris was sending French warplanes to bomb Islamic State positions in Syria as police in Europe widened their investigations into the attacks. A dozen warplanes dropped 20 bombs on ISIS targets in the Islamists’ stronghold of Raqqa, signaling the French government’s resolve in its fight against the group. The strike destroyed an ISIS command post, jihadist recruitment center, a munitions depot and a “terrorist” training camp, according to defense ministry sources.

From a political perspective, the attacks are a reminder of France’s longstanding ethnic frictions after several months in which the focus has been on neighboring Germany. High numbers of migrants have been entering Germany from the east and south, with very few moving on to France. As a result, France has kept a relatively low profile in the attempts to stem the flow of migrants. Nevertheless, the events in Paris can be expected to strengthen the argument the groups that have been calling for a halt of the flow of immigrants and the closing of borders in countries such as Germany, Sweden and much of Central and Eastern Europe.

Also, right-wing politicians, such as Marine Le Pen and her National Front party could see their popularity rise. Le Pen kept a low profile after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in January and still experienced an increase in her party’s popularity because of its longstanding anti-immigration message. Hollande also had a brief uptick in popularity after the Charlie Hebdo attack because of his reaction to the events, but a repeat of this trend is not expected because people will now question whether the anti-terrorism measures that were approved this year worked. The leader of the center-right Republicans Party, Nicolas Sarkozy, also has a history of taking a strong stance on security issues; he was campaigning on the subject only last week. He is expected to battle the milder Alain Juppe for his party’s nomination in the 2017 elections, and voters may swing to his side in the wake of the attacks.

End of the Beginning?

In a speech in 1942, Winston Churchill said that a recent British victory against the Nazis in North Africa was “not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Might the attacks in Paris so congeal world opinion against ISIS that the Western powers along with Russia and Saudi Arabia combine against ISIS and eventually destroy the organization?

Recently, coalition forces have scored two important tactical victories against the Islamic State. The first are the reports of the assassination of “Jihadi John” the notorious British terrorist, who starred in many of ISIS’ beheading videos. U.S. officials now say they are “reasonably certain” that he was killed in a drone strike. The second tactical victory against ISIS will likely have far greater significance; it is the seizure of the town of Sinjar in Iraq by Kurdish forces. Sinjar sits along the road that connects Raqqa with ISIS’ de facto capital in Iraq, the City of Mosul. The seizure of Sinjar will help put pressure on ISIS in both Mosul and Raqqa as ISIS forces in these cities can no longer easily reinforce each other.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, ISIS has lost significant territory in northern Syria, so that it now controls only some 60 miles of the Syrian-Turkish border, down from the 600 miles of border that the group once controlled. Coalition forces’ gains against ISIS have significantly hurt the ability of the group to move foreign fighters through Turkey into Syria, which is how most foreign fighters travel to reach the group. Also, some 40 countries have also introduced new laws to prevent the recruitment of fighters to ISIS or have launched criminal investigations of militants who have joined the group. These developments are surely having some effect on ISIS’ ability to recruit foreign fighters to its ranks.

Even if these developments do mark “the end of the beginning,” the campaign to wrest from ISIS control Raqqa and Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, as well as much of Anbar province—which comprises about one-third of the land mass of Iraq—is still in the future.

Even if ISIS is vanquished, another evil will take its place. It will join the countless other evil entities that inhabit the earth.

The Bible tells us that things will not get better before Christ returns. In fact, they will get exponentially worse.

As Chuck Missler notes in his book, Behold a Red Horse:

People around the globe hope that the world’s going to keep getting better. They look forward to “peace for our time” but will be as disappointed as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after Hitler invaded Poland. Jesus tells us clearly that things will get progressively worse:

You are going to hear of wars and rumors of wars. See to it that you are not alarmed. These things must take place, but the end hasn’t come yet, because nation will rise up in arms against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. But all these things are only the beginning of the birth pains. Matthew 24:6–8, (ISV)

That’s the reality with which we’re confronted. All attempts at world peace have failed. International bodies like the United Nations and its forerunner, the League of Nations, have proved wholly inadequate to handle international criminals, and wars continue to rage in hot spots across the planet. What’s more, we are told that these are merely the beginning of the birth pangs. Man expects to win the battle against disease, famine and hardship. No. There will be continued wars, and the next two horses — Famine and Death — are still on the horizon. In fact, Jesus tells us that unless the time was cut short, no flesh on earth would survive the things that must soon come to pass.

We will continue to hear of “wars and rumors of wars” for some time to come.

Maranatha