Tag Archives: War

Syria HNC offers to share transition

Al-Muslat, spokesman for the HNC, attends an interview with Reuters in Geneva,

GENEVA (Reuters) – Syria’s main opposition group is willing to share membership of a transitional governing body with current members of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, but not Assad himself, the group’s spokesman told Reuters in Geneva.

“There are many people on the other side who we can really deal with,” Salim al-Muslat, the spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, said on the second day of a round of U.N.-mediated peace talks in Geneva.

“We will have no veto, as long as they don’t send us criminals, as long as they don’t send us people involved in the killing of Syrians.”

(This version of the story corrects last word to say “Syrians” instead of “criminals”)

(Reporting by Tom Miles; editing by John Stonestreet)

Iran, France concerned with Syria violence

Residents inspect damages after an airstrike on the rebel held al-Maysar neighborhood in Aleppo

By Tom Perry, John Irish and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

BEIRUT/PARIS/DUBAI (Reuters) – France and Iran voiced concern over escalating violence in Syria on Tuesday, echoing warnings from the United States and Russia as fighting near the city of Aleppo put more pressure on a fragile truce agreement.

The already widely violated “cessation of hostilities” agreement brokered by Russia and the United States has been strained to breaking point by an upsurge in fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels near Aleppo.

The escalation underlines the already bleak outlook for peace talks set to reconvene this week in Geneva. The United Nations says the talks will resume on Wednesday. The government delegation has said it is ready to join the talks from Friday.

With President Bashar al-Assad buoyed by Russian and Iranian military support, the Damascus government is due to hold parliamentary elections on Wednesday, a vote seen by Assad’s opponents as illegitimate and provocative.

Iran said an increase in ceasefire violations could harm the political process a day after Russia said it had asked the United States to stop a mobilization of militants near Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city until the conflict erupted in 2011.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, speaking after a meeting with U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura in Tehran, blamed the “increasing activities of armed groups” for the violations.

France, which backs the opposition, also expressed concern, but blamed the other side. “It warns that the impact of the regime and its allies’ offensives around Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta are a threat to the cessation of hostilities,” government spokesman Romain Nadal said. The Eastern Ghouta is an opposition-held area near Damascus.

Syria’s civil war has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis, allowed for the rise of Islamic State and drawn in regional and international powers. The intervention of Russia swung the war in Assad’s favor.

WASHINGTON “VERY, VERY CONCERNED”

The United States, which also backs rebels fighting Assad, on Monday said it was “very, very concerned” about increased violence and blamed the Syrian government for the vast majority of truce violations.

Both the government and a large number of rebel groups had pledged to respect the cessation of hostilities agreed in February with the aim of allowing a resumption of diplomacy towards ending the five-year-long war. Jihadist groups including the Nusra Front and Islamic State were not part of the deal.

A senior official close to the Syrian government said the truce had effectively collapsed.

“On the ground the truce does not exist,” said the official, who is not Syrian and declined to be named because he was giving a personal assessment. “The level of tension in Syria will increase in the coming months.”

The eruption of fighting on the front lines south of Aleppo marks the most serious challenge yet to the truce.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that tracks the war, said dozens of government fighters had been killed in a big offensive to take the town of Telat al-Eis near the Aleppo-Damascus highway on Tuesday.

A rebel fighting in the area said the assault launched at dawn was backed by Russian air strikes and Iranian militias, adding that the attackers had suffered heavy losses. The Syrian military could not be reached for comment.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have both deployed in the southern Aleppo area in support of the government, while the Nusra Front is also fighting in close proximity to other rebels.

The Syrian prime minister was quoted on Sunday as saying government forces were preparing a major operation in the region with Russian support.

Further south in Homs province, Russia said one of its attack helicopters had crashed in the early hours of Tuesday, killing both pilots. It said the helicopter had not been shot down and the cause of the crash was being investigated.

“PROVOCATIVE” ELECTION

De Mistura, speaking in Tehran, said he and Amir-Abdollahian had agreed on the importance of the cessation continuing, that aid should reach every Syrian and that “a political process leading to a political transition is now crucially urgent”.

De Mistura, whose two predecessors quit, has said he wants the next round of Geneva talks to be “quite concrete” in leading towards a political transition.

Ahead of the first round of talks, Damascus had ruled out any discussion of the presidency, calling it a red line.

A senior Iranian official on Saturday rejected what he described as a U.S. request for Tehran’s help to make Assad leave power, saying he should serve out his term and be allowed to run in a presidential election “as any Syrian”.

Some members of the main Syrian opposition alliance, the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), arrived in Geneva on Tuesday, and U.N. spokesman in Geneva Ahmad Fawzi said the talks were expected to begin on Wednesday.

De Mistura is working according to a U.N. Security Council resolution approved in December that sets out a political process including elections after the establishment of “credible” governance and the approval of a new constitution.

The Syrian government says it is holding Wednesday’s elections in line with the existing timetable that requires a vote every four years. Russia has said the vote does not go against the peace talks and is in line with the constitution.

French President Francois Hollande last month, however, said the idea was provocative and “totally unrealistic”.

(Additional reporting by Tom Miles in Geneva, and Samia Nakhoul and Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Peter Millership and Giles Elgood)

Syria’s Assad shows no willingness to compromise

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Russia's RIA news agency

By Samia Nakhoul

CAIRO (Reuters)- – As the Syria peace talks resume next week, President Bashar al-Assad, backed militarily by Iran and Russia, shows no willingness to compromise, much less step aside to allow a transition Western powers claim is the solution to the conflict.

Threatened by rebel advances last year, Assad is now pumped up with confidence after Russian air strikes reversed the tide and enabled his army to recover lost ground from Sunni insurgents as well as the jihadis of Islamic State.

While Syria experts doubt he can recapture the whole country without an unlikely full-scale ground intervention by Russia and Iran, they also doubt President Vladimir Putin will force him out – unless there is a clear path to stability, which could take years.

Instead, Russia’s dramatic military intervention last September — after five years of inconclusive fighting between Assad and fragmented rebel groups mostly from Syria’s Sunni majority — has tilted the balance of power in his favour and given him the upper hand at the talks in Geneva.

The main target of the Russian air force bombardment was mainstream and Islamist forces that launched an offensive last summer. Only recently have Russia and Syrian forces taken the fight to Islamic State, notably by recapturing Palmyra, the Graeco-Roman city the jihadis overran last year.

The Russian campaign, backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Shi’ite militia such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has for now outmatched the rebels, including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and units supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and the United States.

REBELS LOSE MOMENTUM

Dealing with those groups rather than Islamic State seemed the main aim of Moscow’s intervention, analysts say.

“The Russian intervention fundamentally reshaped the Syrian conflict,” says Kheder Khaddour from the Carnegie Middle East Center. “The momentum of the rebels does not exist any more.”

Putin, diplomats say, weakened the opposition to coax it into accepting a settlement on Russian and Syrian terms. That does not mean the “transitional authority” sought by the U.S. and its allies, but a government expanded to include elements of the opposition, with Assad at its head for the immediate future.

Russia still wants Assad to lead the transition to the elections, while the opposition and its regional allies, including the United States and Europe, insist he should step down. So far no compromises are in sight.

“We need things to advance in the coming weeks. If the political process is just about putting a few opposition people in nominal cabinet posts then this isn’t going to go very far,” said a European diplomat close to the talks..

“If there isn’t a political transition the civil war will continue and Islamic State will benefit from it,” he said.

Fawaz Gerges, author of ISIS: A History, said: “At this point the Russians have the upper hand in dictating a solution. The Americans are playing on Russia’s playing field.”

UNCERTAINTY

His judgment is underlined by Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, who boasted in a recent interview that “the Americans understand they can do nothing without Russia. They can no longer solve serious problems on their own”.

Yet uncertainty surrounds Moscow’s intentions, after Putin suddenly withdrew part of his forces from Syria last month. That led to speculation among Assad’s enemies that Russia was contemplating whether to ditch Assad – an outcome many Syria watchers find highly improbable.

“The key issue remains when and if the Russians will act to facilitate this transition. It’s unclear, and we get the feeling that the recent talks didn’t change much in the Russian position,” the European diplomat said.

“I don’t think the upcoming round will reach any real decisions on the political process, he added.

Gerges says the partial pull-back sent a message to the Americans that Russia is a rational and credible force that is interested in a diplomatic settlement.

It was also intended as a jolt to Assad, by then so emboldened at the way Russia and Iran had transformed his weak position that he was announcing plans to recapture all of Syria.

“The message to the Assad regime was that Russia doesn’t play by Assad’s playbook, it doesn’t want to get down in Syria’s quagmire (but) wants to cut its losses,” Gerges believes.

But it is far from clear that Assad interprets these messages the same way.

Last month, he dismissed any notion of a transition from the current structure, as agreed by international powers, calling instead for “national unity” solution with some elements of the opposition joining the present government.

“The transition period must be under the current constitution, and we will move on to the new constitution after the Syrian people vote for it,” Assad told Russia’s Sputnik news agency.

ASSAD “WILL NOT GO QUIETLY”

Faisal al-Yafai, a leading commentator from the United Arab Emirates, says Russia “played its cards in Syria very cleverly, but miscalculated in one aspect”.

“They assumed that once the (Assad) regime felt secure, it would be more willing to negotiate. In fact, the opposite has happened”.

“There’s a limit to the pressure that Russia can exert on Assad. Assad absolutely will not go quietly — and certainly not when there is no real alternative to him, even within the regime,” says al-Yafai.

Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria and now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, agrees that Russia may not be able to compel Assad to go.

The secret police backbone of Assad’s rule remains intact, he says, and “Assad seems confident again, after his much more sober tone last summer. The Russians may have helped him too much, such that Assad can maintain control of key cities and roads for a long time”.

Ford also drew attention to the competition over Syria between Russia and Iran, Assad’s two main allies. Moscow’s emphasis is on its traditional relations with the Syrian military establishment, while Tehran focusses on the militia network it built with Hezbollah to shore up the regime.

“Assad is plenty smart to know how to play one country off against the other. I am not even sure Russia would test its heavy pressure capacity against that of Iran in Damascus. The Russians know they might lose”, Ford said.

Russia’s involvement in Syria has given it greater insight into the structure of the Assad rule, constructed to intermesh the Assad family and allies from its minority Alawite community with the security services and military command.

ASSAD BUOYANT

Khaddour from Carnegie says Russia now realises the circumstances for a transition do not yet exist, because removing Assad might unravel the whole power structure.

“There is a problem within the regime. It is not capable of producing an alternative to itself internally,” says Khaddour, adding the only concession it has made – simply to turn up in Geneva – was the result of Russian pressure.

With limits to Russian and Iranian influence on a newly buoyant Assad, few believe the Geneva talks will bring peace.

“If the Russians felt it was time for a solution they would have reached an understanding with the Americans to give up on Assad without giving up on the Alawites. The circumstances are not ripe yet for a solution,” says Sarkis Naoum, a leading commentator on Syria.

The diplomat added: “The fundamental question is still whether the Russians are serious and want this to happen.”

“Nobody knows what’s in their mind and I’m not sure they even know.”

(Additional reporting by John Irish; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Yemen Families Uprooted By War

A girl holds her sister outside their family's hut at the Shawqaba camp

By Abduljabbar Zeyad

HAJJAH, Yemen (Reuters) – They live in scruffy tents or mud huts on dry, stony ground. Children play with what they have – a rubber tire will do. Medical treatment is hard to come by for young and old alike.

In northwest Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, families uprooted by the war have been stuck in camps for the past year.

Around 400 of them now reside in the Shawqaba camp in Hajjah province, which borders Saudi Arabia. A visiting Reuters photographer has captured their life in a Wider Image photo essay found at http://reut.rs/226i5tr .

When fighting between Saudi forces and Houthi rebels began in March 2015, these refugees were forced to leave their villages in al-Dhahir and Shada districts in neighboring Saada province as Saudi-led warplanes targeted Houthi positions.

Residents and human rights groups say some of the strikes destroyed homes and damaged farmlands. The coalition has acknowledged mistakes in air operations in Yemen but denies Houthi allegations that its forces strike civilian targets.

A few months later, the place they sought refuge, al-Mazraq camp near the border city of Harad, also in Hajjah, was bombarded.

Families moved further inland to the arid Shawqaba camp that lacks the most basic services. Residents call home poorly build huts that protect them neither from summer heat nor winter cold.

Amal Jabir, 10, standing outside her family’s hut, says there’s only one thing she wishes for.

“I want this war to be over, to return home and finish my studies,” she says.

Many children suffer from a lack of nutrition and health services. Muhammad, 11, is waiting for treatment of his fractured leg.

Elderly people with diabetes and heart conditions complain of a lack of medicine – and the high prices when it is available.

Yemen has been in a civil war for more than a year between supporters of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and the Iran-allied Houthi group that has sucked in a Saudi-led alliance and caused a major humanitarian crisis.

U.N.-sponsored peace talks are scheduled to start in Kuwait on April 18. The two sides in the conflict have confirmed a truce starting at midnight on April 10.

(Reporting by Khaled Abdullah; Writing by Brian McGee; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Fierce Afghan Fighting Slows NATO

Incoming Commander of Resolute Support forces and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, U.S. Army General John Nicholson speaks during a change of command ceremony in Resolute Support headquarters in Kabul, Afghanistan,

By Paul Tait

FORWARD OPERATING BASE GAMBERI, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Intense fighting and unprecedented casualties suffered by Afghan forces in 2015 have put U.S. and NATO efforts to train a self-sufficient force behind schedule, the new commanding general in Afghanistan told Reuters on Monday.

The impact of the violence in 2015, and the changing nature of the enemy Afghan troops face, will form an important part of an initial assessment of conditions in Afghanistan being conducted by new commander General John Nicholson.

“This intense period of combat interfered with the glide slope we were on. The assumptions we made about our timelines, we have to re-look based upon the high casualties they took,” Nicholson said in his first interview since taking command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last month.

“It wasn’t just the high casualties, which require replacement and retraining,” he said.

“There was also the fact that they had to stop training and fight all year. So this put us behind on our projections in terms of the growth and increasing proficiency of the army and the police.”

Nicholson is about a third of the way through the 90-day assessment he will present in Washington some time in June.

It could be the most significant since General Stanley McChrystal recommended a “surge” in 2009 that took U.S. troop numbers to 100,000 and the overall NATO force to about 140,000.

Under the current timeline, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan will fall from 9,800 at present to 5,500 by the start of 2017, barring a dramatic change of thinking in Washington.

The adherence to that timeline could be affected by the success of the mission to train Afghan soldiers and police, and to build a proficient air force to support them.

Nicholson would not be drawn on his recommendations for future troop levels.

Taliban gains, including their brief capture of the key northern city of Kunduz last year, led his predecessor General John Campbell to recommend dropping plans to cut U.S. troop numbers from the start of 2016 and instead maintain the 9,800-strong force before a reduction by the start of next year.

Originally President Barack Obama had intended roughly to halve U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan this year and cut the force to just 1,000 troops based at the U.S. embassy in Kabul by the start of 2017.

HEAVY LOSSES

Nicholson said Afghan forces suffered 5,500 killed in action and more than 14,000 wounded in 2015, significantly affecting the U.S.-led training and assistance mission.

“This would be an enormous shock for any army, (including) a young army that is still growing. Yet they did not break,” Nicholson said, after touring Forward Operating Base Gamberi in eastern Laghman province, one of the four main training bases.

A recent report from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said it was unlikely that a “robust and sustainable” force would develop without a continuing strong U.S. and NATO presence.

Nicholson said that the heavy fighting of 2015 and casualties suffered by Afghan forces would be among the conditions NATO leaders would consider when deciding when to withdraw.

Nicholson added that “some more years” were needed to expand and train the fledgling Afghan air force now that U.S. and NATO aircraft take part in fewer operations. That effort in turn was affected by the heavy fighting in 2015.

“The pilots that we’re training are going directly into combat. The combat affects the speed with which we can train and field the air force,” he said.

“Until that airforce is fully fielded, the Afghans are at increased risk,” he said.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Turkey illegally returned Syrians

A woman holding a child reacts as Turkish police and gendarmes block migrants on a highway

By Dasha Afanasieva and Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has illegally returned thousands of Syrians to their war-torn homeland in recent months, highlighting dangers for migrants sent back from Europe under a deal due to take effect next week, Amnesty International said on Friday.

Turkey agreed with the EU this month to take back all migrants and refugees who cross illegally to Greece in exchange for financial aid, faster visa-free travel for Turks and slightly accelerated EU membership talks.

But the legality of the deal hinges on Turkey being a safe country of asylum, which the rights group said in a report was not the case. Amnesty said it was likely that several thousand refugees had been sent back to Syria in the past seven to nine weeks, flouting Turkish, EU and international law.

Turkey’s foreign ministry denied Syrians were being sent back against their will, while a spokesman for the European Commission said it took the allegations seriously and would raise them with Ankara.

Separately, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said it had asked for access to Syrians returned to Turkey from Greece “to ensure people can benefit from effective international protection and to prevent risk of refoulement”, referring to unlawful deportations of refugees at risk of persecution.

Ankara said it had maintained an open-door policy for Syrian migrants for five years and strictly abided by the “non-refoulement” principle.

“None of the Syrians that have demanded protection from our country are being sent back to their country by force,” a foreign ministry official told Reuters.

But Amnesty said testimonies it had gathered in Turkey’s southern border provinces suggested authorities had been rounding up and expelling groups of around 100 Syrian men, women and children almost daily since the middle of January.

“In their desperation to seal their borders, EU leaders have wilfully ignored the simplest of facts: Turkey is not a safe country for Syrian refugees and is getting less safe by the day,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s director for Europe and Central Asia.

Under the deal, Turkey is supposed to be taking in migrants returned from Greece on April 4, but uncertainty remains over how many will be sent back, how they will be processed, and where they will be housed.

The aim is to close the main route by which a million migrants and refugees crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece in the last year before heading north, mainly to Germany and Sweden.

(Additional reporting by Gabriela Baczynska in Brussels and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Nick Tattersall and John Stonestreet)

Syrian government forces enter Islamic State-held Palmyra

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces fought their way into Palmyra on Thursday as the army backed by Russian air cover sought to recapture the historic city from Islamic State (IS) insurgents, Syrian state TV and a monitoring group said.

The Syrian army earlier this month launched a concerted offensive to retake Palmyra, which the ultra-hardline Islamist militants seized in May 2015, to open a road to the mostly IS-held eastern province of Deir al-Zor.

Islamic State has blown up ancient temples and tombs since capturing Palmyra, something the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO has called a war crime. The city, located at a crossroads in central Syria, is surrounded mostly by desert.

The state-run news channel Ikhbariya broadcast images from just outside Palmyra on Thursday and said government fighters had taken over a hotel district in the west.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the army had advanced into the hotel district just to the southwest of the city and reached the start of a residential area, after a rapid advance the day before brought the army and its allies right up to its outskirts.

A soldier interviewed by Ikhbariya said the army and its allies would press forward beyond Palmyra.

“We say to those gunmen, we are advancing to Palmyra, and to what’s beyond Palmyra, and God willing to Raqqa, the center of the Daesh gangs,” he said, referring to Islamic State’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

The state news agency SANA showed warplanes flying overhead, helicopters firing missiles, and soldiers and armored vehicles approaching Palmyra.

Civilians began fleeing after Islamic State fighters told them via loudspeakers to leave the center as fighting drew closer, the Observatory said. The Observatory monitors the war using a network of sources on the ground.

The capture of Palmyra and advances further eastwards into Deir al-Zor would mark the most significant Syrian government gain against Islamic State since the start of Russia’s military intervention last September.

With Russia’s help, Damascus has already taken back some ground from IS, notably east of Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city and commercial hub before the war.

(Reporting by John Davison, Dominic Evans and Lisa Barrington; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

U.S. military leaders voice concern about readiness of forces

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. military leaders voiced concern on Wednesday about their ability to fight a war with global powers like Russia, telling a congressional hearing that a lack of resources and training was weighing on America’s combat readiness.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley told a House Armed Services Committee hearing that if the Army were to fight a “great power war” with China, Russia, Iran or North Korea, he had “grave concerns” about the readiness of his forces.

“(The Army) is not at the levels that can execute satisfactorily … in terms of time, cost in terms of casualties or cost in terms of military objectives,” Milley said.

Also speaking at the hearing, about the Fiscal 2017 budget request for the military, Air Force Secretary Deborah James said half of her combat forces were not “sufficiently ready” for fighting against a country like Russia.

“Money is helpful for readiness but freeing up the time of our people to go and do this training is equally important,” James said.

Earlier this month Air Force officials said they were facing a shortage of more than 500 fighter pilots, a gap expected to widen to more than 800 by 2022.

U.S. military spending has increased sharply since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the country has by far the largest military budget in the world.

The Army requested $148 billion in the fiscal 2017 budget, a slight increase from the $146.9 billion Army budget for 2016.

However, the 2017 Army budget would continue to shrink the size of the U.S. Army, which will drop to 460,000 active duty soldiers in 2017 from the current 475,000.

Concern over a more assertive Russia was highlighted earlier this month by Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the NATO supreme allied commander and head of U.S. European Command, when he said Russia posed a “long-term existential threat to the United States.”

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Tom Brown)

Joel Richardson Warns, “There is a Storm Brewing”

On our first exciting evening service for the prophetic conference here at Morningside, Joel Richardson began his message with one clear word on the prophetic.

“You don’t need to be a prophet to understand the big picture. For the finer details, yes you might need to be one, but in terms of understanding what’s unfolding right now all over the world, it is actually very simple. There is a storm brewing.”

Joel Richardson knows when a storm is coming. As the son of a fisherman, he grew up in an area plagued by hurricanes, Now he lives in the midwest where storms can come up quickly and produce destructive tornadoes. Joel explained that hurricanes begin as a tropical storm, far away, The storm is out there, swirling in the ocean. Then 2 , 3 or 4 days down the road you see the entire coast engulfed in this massive storm system and on alert. You can look on a map and see the hurricane swallowing half of the country.

According to Pastor Richardson, “If we want to understand the story of what is happening in our world right now we have to begin by understanding the basic story of the Bible, which is this: The God of Heaven and Earth has made a promise, He has made vows, He has actually made vows unto death, and these promises have to do with what is happening right now. These promises involve a very specific piece of real estate; a very specific spot on the map that is called the city of Jerusalem, in the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel is like a tropical storm right now, and the storm is beginning to brew and to swirl.”

Richardson explained that the scriptures teach that eventually the storm that begins around Jerusalem, the rage of Satan against the fulfillment of God’s promises, will pull every nation on earth into its destructive power.

“The storm is already beginning, we are already starting to feel the winds of this storm. This is a storm that eventually will affect everyone on this earth. This will be an economic storm, it will be a storm that will affect nature with natural disasters, it will be a military storm, there will be very real wars. Beyond that it is a theological storm, an ideological storm. This storm will involve deception and this is one of the first things that we need to be made aware of.”

Joel stressed that before we feel the winds of decimation we will, even in the church, feel the winds of deception. He warned against the danger of believing in replacement theology. A theology that states in effect, that the church has superseded Israel; that God has transferred his plans and purposes from Israel to the church. When in fact, God made these promises to Jerusalem over and over in His Word. Israel is his Jewel and it in the city of Jerusalem that Jesus will have His throne.

Listening to Joel speak is always compelling.The biblical knowledge on Israel and on her enemies are an incredible gift to understanding God’s plans. Joel describes Jesus as sitting on the right hand of God, now, interceding for us. He is waiting…His heart is burning. He wants to come back more than WE want him to come back. And it is almost time.

In closing, Joel Richardson tells us all to keep our eyes on the Middle East and be wary of the winds that we feel from there.

“It is right in front of us, the battle… the storm. Watch Israel. Watch Jerusalem.”

There is a storm brewing.

 

Our Prophetic Week DVD is now available containing every taping of the Jim Bakker Show with all of our amazing guests, as well as Morningside’s inspirational evening services including Joel Richardson during Prophetic week 2016.                                 

Ukraine’s president sees increased risk of open war with Russia

BERLIN (Reuters) – The risk of open war between Russia and Ukraine is greater than it was a year ago and Russian President Vladimir Putin has begun an “information war” against Germany, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko told the German newspaper Bild.

Poroshenko, who met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Monday, said Russia had implemented “not one single point” of the Minsk accord, which includes a ceasefire between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine.

Russia was building up its military presence on the border with Ukraine, he said.

“The danger of an open war is greater than last year,” Poroshenko told Bild, in an interview published in its Wednesday edition. “Russia is investing a great deal in war preparations.”

Merkel pressed Putin by phone on Tuesday to use his influence to ensure that a ceasefire is upheld in Ukraine and that monitors from the OSCE European security organization are granted free access to conflict areas, her spokesman said.

Berlin is growing increasingly suspicious that Russia is trying to stir up trouble in Germany to try to weaken Merkel, who has taken a tough line on a crisis that was triggered when Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014.

German officials say Moscow hopes to destabilize Europe and create a vacuum into which it can project its own power.

“Now Putin has opened an information war against Germany as well,” Poroshenko said.

German concerns about Moscow grew last month after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the German authorities of “sweeping problems under the rug” over an alleged rape case involving a German-Russian girl.

The case of the 13-year-old, named only as Lisa F., caused controversy after she told police that she had been kidnapped in east Berlin last month by migrants who raped her while she was held for 30 hours.

The Berlin public prosecutor’s office has since said a medical examination found she was not raped.

When asked if Russia had used the case to try to stir up tensions around immigration, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, told reporters on Wednesday: “We cannot agree with such accusations.”

“On the contrary, we were keen that our position be understood, we were talking about a citizen of the Russian Federation,” he added. “Any country expresses its concerns (in such cases). It would be wrong to look for any hidden agenda.”

(Additional reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)