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NATIONAL SECURITY FOREIGN AFFAIRS UPDATE
OCTOBER 23, 2017 (REPORT #51)

Highlights:

• Cold War returns with nuclear-armed bombers on 24-hour alert
• CIA expands Taliban hunt
• ISIS battle converges in the Euphrates Valley
• Iraqi, Kurdish forces exchange fire at shared border
• U.S. Forces Korea ready with THAAD
• Russia complains U.S.-led coalition destroyed Raqqa like allies did the German city of Dresden in World War Two
• U.S. SEC State calls on Iran-backed militia to go home
• Iraq’s PM rejects Tillerson’s call for PMU to “go home”

CURRENT

• Cold War Returns with Nuclear-Armed Bombers on 24-hour alert.  DefenseOne reports the U.S. Air Force is preparing to put nuclear-armed bombers on 24-hour ready alert, something not seen since the end of the Cold War.  “This is yet one more step in ensuring that we’re prepared,” Gen. David Goldfein, Air Force chief of staff, said.  “I look at it more as not planning for any specific event, but more for the reality of the global situation we find ourselves in and how we ensure we’re prepared going forward.”  Putting the bomber fleet on alert is just one of many decisions facing the Air Force as the U.S. military responds to changing geopolitical environment that includes North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear arsenal as well as Russia’s increasingly potent and active armed forces.
• CIA expands Taliban hunt.  The New York Times reports the CIA is expanding its operations in Afghanistan, sending teams alongside Afghan forces to hunt Taliban jihadi.  The Times reports this is a shift for the CIA in that country, where it had focused on defeating al Qaeda and helping Afghan intelligence operatives.  The agency’s paramilitary division, which is taking on the mission, numbers only in the hundreds and is deployed all over the world.  The expanded mission reflects that agency’s assertive role under Mike Pompeo, the new director, to combat insurgents around the world.  Pompeo said “We can’t perform our mission if we’re not aggressive.  … This is unforgiving, relentless.  You pick the word.  Every minute, we have to be focused on crushing our enemies.”
• ISIS battle converges in the Euphrates Valley.  The Air Force Times reports the coalition’s fight with ISIS jihadi is now focused along a stretch of the Euphrates River Valley straddling the Syrian border.   ISIS no longer has a presence in cities such as Mosul, Tal Afar and Haditha.  Rather, U.S.-led coalition forces are focused on driving ISIS out of towns like al Qaim.   Air operations are “shaping” the battlefield by taking out weapons centers like car bomb factories and ISIS C3 centers.  Brig. Gen. Andrew Croft, deputy commanding general for Air, Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command, Operation Inherent Resolve, said “They’ll move against multiple areas in the Euphrates River Valley in a multi-axis operation.  The preponderance of ISIS forces, we believe, are in that area … essentially all the way out east to Rawa.”

CONSEQUENCES

• Iraqi, Kurdish forces exchange fire at shared border.  The Military Times reports Iraqi federal and Kurdish forces exchanged fire at their shared border on Friday, ending a week of conflict whereby Kurds returned control to Iraqi forces.  By mid-Friday, Iraq’s defense ministry said anti-terrorism forces used artillery against Kurdish forces in AltunKupri, a town in the Kurdish region.    Kurdish forces withdrew last week in most areas to positions they last held in 2014, restoring the map to the time before the rise of ISIS.
• U.S. Forces Korea ready with THAAD.  The Yonhap News Agency reports the U.S. Forces Korea set-up the unit charged with operating the advanced missile defense system deployed in that country.  On Thursday, a ceremony was held in Seongju to transfer the Delta Battery of the 11th Air Defense Artillery brigade to the 35th ADA Brigade in South Korea.  The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, which has missile launchers, command and control facilities and a powerful radar, was first deployed in April, but at that time there were only two interceptor launchers.  Four more launchers arrived last month.
• Russia complains U.S.-led coalition destroyed Raqqa like allies did the German city of Dresden in World War Two.  The BBC reports the Syrian Democratic Forces, a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurds and Arabs, destroyed Raqqa, and Moscow compared that result to the Allied destruction of the German city of Dresden in WW II.  Russia itself was accused of committing war crimes for bombarding Aleppo, Syria last year.  UN war crimes investigators in June that there had been a “staggering loss of civilian life” in Raqqa.  A Russian defense spokesman said “Raqqa has inherited the fate of Dresden in 1945, wiped off the face of the earth by Anglo-American bombardments.”
• U.S. SEC State calls on Iran-backed militia to go home.  The BBC reports U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called on Iran-backed militias fighting ISIS should leave northern Iraq as the battle is nearing its end.  Tillerson insists mopping up should be left to the Iraqis.   Iraqi forces have been fighting ISIS alongside Popular Mobilization Units, a coalition of Shia militia, backed by Iran.  Those units have been accused of abuses, including torture and killings, during the anti-ISIS operations in Iraq.
• Iraq’s PM rejects Tillerson’s call for PMU to “go home.”The media office of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Oct. 23 criticized U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's recent statements that Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units who helped Iraq fight the Islamic State should "go home," Reuters reported. According to Reuters, the prime minister's office said that "No party has the right to interfere in Iraqi matters."  

Pray – lets be in prayer over each of these very significant situations and pray as we are guided.

Robert Maginnis
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

December 5-7, 2017
Saddleback Church
Lake Forest, CA

Finishing The Task is an association of mission agencies and churches who want to see reproducing churches planted among every people groups in the world.  Does this passion also burn in your heart? Then we invite you to join us this year at the 2017 Finishing The Task Conference!

"I attended my first Finishing The Task conference in December [2016]...[the speakers] inspired me to get more involved and be more intentional with the task of the Great Commission"
— Kent Kiefer, CEO of Scriptures In Use

Who Should Attend?

If you identify with one or more of the following categories, this conference is for you!

• Sending Organization/Church
• You want to send (or help send) gospel workers to plant multiplying churches among Unengaged, Unreached People Groups (UUPGs).
• Resource Provider
• You indirectly engage UUPGs by gathering resources (i.e., finances, training, or media tools).
• Mission Mobilizer
• You promote the engagement of UUPGs by increasing awareness, vision-casting, and connecting potential gospel workers and resources with engagement opportunities.
• Prayer/Prayer Leader or Mobilizer
• You promote the engagement of UUPGs through prayer in building a platform of prayer, awareness building, vision casting and connecting prayer as a foundational aspect and resource with opportunities among UUPGs

This is a hands-on conference where you will interact with others to discover where the Lord is leading you!

More info and sign up: http://finishingthetask.org/

Who Are the Keynote Presenters?

Paul Eshleman — Director, Finishing the Task
Paul Eshleman is Vice President of Networks and Partnerships for Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ International). Paul founded the JESUS Film Project and served as its Director for 25 years. He led the nationwide “I Found it Campaign”, EXPLO 72, and recently headed the Strategy Working Committee for the Lausanne Movement. Paul currently serves as the Executive Director of the Finishing the Task Network and President of the Issachar Initiative. He and his wife Kathy have two adult children and live in Orange County, CA.

Rick Warren — Pastor, Saddleback Church
Pastor Rick Warren founded Saddleback Valley Community Church with his wife Kay more than 30 years ago. Today, the church, located in Lake Forest, Calif., is one of the 10 largest and most influential churches in America. Recognizing his far-reaching influence, Pastor Warren developed The PEACE Plan to partner with churches, businesses and NGOs to Promote reconciliation, Equip servant leaders, Assist the poor, Care for the sick and Educate the next generation. Pastor Warren is also the author of “The Purpose Driven Life,” the bestselling non-fiction hardback in publishing history.

Louie Giglio — Pastor, Passion City Church
Louie Giglio is Pastor of Passion City Church and the Founder of the Passion movement, which exists to call a generation to leverage their lives for the fame of Jesus.

Since 1997, Passion has gathered collegiate-aged young people in events across the US and around the world. Most recently, Passion 2017 gathered more than 55,000 students in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome in one of the largest collegiate gatherings in its history.

In addition to the collegiate gatherings of Passion Conferences, Louie and his wife Shelley lead the teams at Passion City Church, sixstepsrecords and the Passion Global Institute. Louie is the author of The Comeback, The Air I Breathe, I Am Not But I Know I Am, and Goliath Must Fall, releasing May 2017.

Nik Ripken — Global Missioligist, IMB and Author, "The Insanity of God"
Dr. Nik and his wife, Ruth, are mission veterans for over 32 years with the International Mission Board, having served in Malawi, Transkei, South Africa, Kenya, Somalia, Germany, Ethiopia, and the Middle East.

Nik has a B.A. in Religion and History, along with a Masters and Doctorate in Ministry and both he and Ruth currently serve as Global Missiologists. Dr. Ripken is the author of many articles on missions and, along with Ruth, has done extensive research among the persecuted in approximately 70 countries. He is the author of "The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected" and "The Insanity of Obedience: Walking with Jesus in Tough Places". In cooperation with B&H Publishing, a curriculum based upon both books was developed in 2016 and a documentary based on "The Insanity of God" was released nationwide in 2016.

The Ethne Strategic Prayer Group together with the Fellowship of Prayer Strategists are embarking on an ambitious project to collate and revise existing material on prayer training with additional new material to produce simple, replicable prayer training material for 6 of the following profile groups. The aim is to multiple and mobilize the body of Christ to pray effectively for the remaining unreached groups and those with little access to the Gospel.

Please stand with the team in prayer as we meet together for this intensive time of responding to the Holy Spirits leading to produce material for this season of urgent effective prayer.

For more information please write to:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. receive the prayer shield information sheet and details of online calls during the 5-9th Nov event.

6 Identified Types of Prayer Training Needed:

1. Prayer training in Discovery Bible Study (DBS) format for new believers especially those which would be coming out from efforts of strategy teams, to especially include praying for the Unreached peoples.
2. Prayer training for churches wanting to help their congregations learn how to better engage in prayer for Unreached people's. Churches are calling their people to prayer; how do we help see that they are not only praying inwardly for themselves, their families, their churches, their neighborhoods (which is our Jerusalem), but also prayer for the Judea, Samaria, and ends of the earth?
3. Prayer training for New prayer coordinators and/or those wanting to sharpen their skills for serving organizations/networks/partnerships;
4. Prayer training for "twinning" project like Inherit the Nations which would be matching communities of prayer with frontline field workers representing specific UPGs/teams. Training would be for both the frontline worker representatives as well as the prayer communities’ leaders.
5. Training for Children learning about and praying for UPGs;
6. Prayer strategists with strategy teams (Ephesus vision) prayer training on the "spheres of prayer" involved as strategy in igniting movements to Christ (probably also in DBS format where possible with attending bibliographies)

Thank you for standing with us,
Jenny Oliphant and Liz Adleta
http://www.ethne.net

"Get ready for the Second Coming of Barack Hussein Obama. THE COMEBACK! Ready or not, Obama will emerge from the shadows that have been sheltering him as ‘Leader of the Resistance’, for a 2-day Global Summit in Chicago, where he floats the hope that young civic leaders gathered for the Summit call will live on to “change the world”.

"Note that Resistance Leader Obama, flush with a $60-million plus book deal and a $1-billion, modern, stone-and-glass complex on Lake Michigan planned as the Obama Presidential Center for a 2021 opening, is not creeping back to the front of the battle lines, but will be strutting across the stage, in full theatrical glory at Chicago’s Hyatt Regency McCormick Place."

....

"The Obama center is no longer just the dream blueprint of an egomaniac. It is theObamaFoundation, the former president’s 3-year-old nonprofit forglobalchange, that is hosting the global summit onOct. 31 and Nov. 1and bringing to reality, the future site of the Obama Presidential Center in the City of Chicago.

“Expected to be completed in 2021, it will be located in Jackson Park, a space designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. The 500-acre, lakefront park already includes the Museum of Science and Industry, a beach, golf courses and athletic facilities."

Nov. 4th: Progressive/left are boasting as their biggest demonstration to date

Even with Obama’s September video calling on civic youth to come together to “change the world”, and with his inaugural global summit heralding the attendance of the Prince of Wales, comments on some sites promoting the big Chicago global event total zero in their comment sections.

But it’s the timing of the summit that presents the most clear and present danger. The summit will be followed three short days later by what the progressive/left are boasting as their biggest demonstration to date, the one whose hopes ride on FINALLY removing both Donald Trump and Michael Pence from office.

Tom Trento, of theUnited Westsends this warning to the United States: “OnNovember 4, 2017the Marxist Left will attack American cities to destroy President Trump.”

Read read full article with sources here:  http://canadafreepress.com/article/the-big-obama-comeback-to-be-followed-by-the-big-trump-takedown

Let’s pray for the overthrow of these evil plans of globalists to ignite anarchy and revolutionary violence in order to bring down the U.S. government and to create a New World Order.

1. Pray that the "global summit" Obama and his people are planning for Oct 31 to Nov 1 will be a non-event, even a complete bust, and that those participating will see right through him, being repulsed by his noble-sounding but narcissistic and false vision.

2. Let's also pray that groups like Antifa and associated radical leftist groups that are socialist-communist-anarchist in their political stance and who are prepared to use violence to destroy our elected president and government will be stopped (even arrested) and shown up to the American people as being an evil danger to our nation. May they and their philosophy be rejected wholesale by the American people and especially the youth whose support they are courting!

3. Pray that the US government will be effective in forcefully coming against and neutralizing such radical groups and that any plans for violent demonstrations on Nov 4th will be unsuccessful so that any socio-political revolution intended will be quashed by our police and military and so that lives and property will be kept from harm.

4. Behind all of those human actors who are wrong-headed or are planning outright harm and evil there are spiritual forces of darkness that want to use people in these ways. Let's indeed use the Lord's authority to bind Satan and such demonic beings, preventing them from bringing chaos and destruction upon the USA.

In this fallen world people in positions of authority break laws. The following are corruption instances in a three week period. Four Baltimore police detectives distributed heroin. A congressional staffer organised fraudulent money laundering schemes. A deputy secretary of state committed perjury. A Detroit deputy chief of police committed bribery and conspiracy. A Navy comptroller accepted illegal gratuities. A state judge dismissed cases in exchange for personal benefits. A Philadelphia judge and a witness made false statements to the federal election commission. Audio evidence in a federal investigation was tampered with for financial gain. A construction company paid $1 million in bribes for Atlanta contracts. A Drug Enforcement Administration special agent obstructed justice, committed perjury and other crimes; a former Task Force officer was also charged. A Pine Bluff man stole $1 million intended to feed hungry children. A Vigo County sheriff’s deputy committed fraud. Corruption damages the economy, reputations of businesses and of those fighting for justice.

The BBC’s America First series reported on Angel, who was 13 when her mother forced her to marry and start a family. ‘I felt like a slave,’ she says of her childhood. Zimbabwe, Malawi and El Salvador have recently banned child marriage, but it remains legal in the USA - and half of states have no set minimum age below which you cannot get married. Recently the Independent reported that in the last fifteen years, more than 200,000 children were married in the USA. The minimum age for marriage is usually 18, but there are exemptions - such as parental consent or pregnancy - which allow younger children, sometimes as young as ten, to tie the knot. See

Awaken the Dawn was a weekend of worship in the National Mall, a vast area of parkland between Capitol Hill and the Lincoln Memorial. Christians from every state and region had a tent on the Mall for the event, each one offering praise and adoration 24/7 all weekend. They desired to bless God and call His presence down on America. ‘It’s all about King Jesus,’ said one participant. ‘We’re lifting His name up. The Bible says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me”. We want to see a Great Awakening.’ Another worshipper said, ‘Just as you have congressmen and senators representing every state in politics, here every state in the union is represented by Holy Ghost Christian people of all races and colours. We are here to worship the King of Kings 24/7.’

Massive wildfires in California have killed 31 people, and damaged thousands of homes and businesses. 8,000 firefighters, supported by 124 aircraft, are battling 22 wildfires, intensified by strong winds, in areas declared to be in a state of emergency. Flames have charred 170,000+ acres and damaged or destroyed 3,500+ structures, forcing the evacuation of 25,000 residents. Pray for comfort for those who have lost loved ones, and for the healing of hundreds being treated for burns and smoke inhalation. Ask God to strengthen those who have lost everything, and pray for the hundreds of missing people to be found alive and safe. Remember police as they strive to prevent looting, and for hospitals and homes without electricity. One sheriff said the wildfires are ‘one of the worst natural disasters in California’s history.’

The USA and the world are still reeling from the horrific shooting that killed 59 people and wounded over 500 more on 1 October in Las Vegas. While we are all still grappling with this senseless act of violence and ‘pure evil,’ as President Trump termed it, there are also stories of courage and heroism which showcase the best aspects of the human spirit. Many people acted selflessly during the shooting. One couple attending the concert fled from the scene in their pickup truck, but returned to help transport the wounded to hospitals. Another story emerged of a husband who gave his life for his wife by shielding her with his body as bullets rained down on the crowd. Two friends at the concert heard the shots and hid under some tables, then a complete stranger came and shielded them.

Taylor was attending the concert at the Mandalay Bay casino when a gunman killed 59 and wounded 527. He said that prior to the shooting he was an agnostic but, ‘In a fight or flight situation you just take it to God and hope that you can make it,’ In the midst of tragedy and fear, not knowing where to flee to, with bodies everywhere, his faith was renewed. The National Day of Prayer president said, ‘The massacre has more to do with the fallenness of mankind than where God is. God is with the people of Las Vegas. He is with everyone who has suffered. We must trust Him, even when we see things like this occur and we have no idea why someone would do it. We are living in days like none before and being called back to God through every terrible event we are observing around the world. The Church must call out to God together.’ See