President Donald Trump announced over the weekend that ISIS founder abu Bakr al-Baghdadi went to his self-inflicted death a whimpering, crying coward pursued by American Special Forces. But there is a lot more to the Baghdadi story that you may not know, including a brush with the prophetic. al-Baghdadi claimed to be a descendent of Mohammad. He was born in Samarra, Iraq, home of the al Askari Mosque, housing the 10th and 11th Imams and where the 12th Imam, the Mahdi, went into occultation, according to Islamic myth. This was once part of the Assyrian Empire and al-Baghdadi declared himself the Caliph, was taking spoil and threatening Israel. Keep reading and you will know the rest of the story.
End time prophecy is full of foreshadowing, partial fulfillments and precursors. Throughout history, there has been rise and fall of those who were types of the end time apocalyptic figure–what many Christians call the “antichrist,” what Holy Scripture calls the “beast” or, more specifically, the “Assyrian.” This antichrist figure is alluded to as the Assyrian in Isaiah 10:5,10:24,14:25, 19:23, 30:31, 31:8, Micah 5:5-6, and Hosea 11:5. Ezekiel refers to him as Gog, chief Prince of Magog. The Lord speaks of the Assyrian or Gog in Ezekiel 38:17, “Art you he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring ye against them?”
Ancient Samarra was re-founded by the Assyrian King Sennacherib, who is described in Isaiah 10 as a type of the antichrist and whose army was destroyed by the Angel of the Lord when it came against Judah and Jerusalem (2 Kings 19, 2 Chronicles 32). Given al-Baghdadi’s background and what he did to anyone who got into his way—torturing and killing Christians—and how he swept through the Middle East, he may well have been a type and shadow of the end time Beast (antichrist). Some news stories are discussing that none of the Democratic Party leadership has praised Trump or the American troops for bringing an end to al-Baghdadi. Is it because they hate Trump, or is there more to the story?
The Washington Post’s lead story December 1, 2015 was about how the US was supplying military aid to the Islamic State (ISIS), reporting: “Iraqi fighters say they have all seen the videos purportedly showing U.S. helicopters airdropping weapons to the militants, and many claim they have friends and relatives who have witnessed similar instances of collusion. Ordinary people also have seen the videos, heard the stories and reached the same conclusion…The United States is supporting the Islamic State…” In September 2013, the UK Telegraph reported that Senator John McCain (R-Az) received assurances from the US “president” that a 50-man cell, “believed to have been trained by US special forces in Jordan,” was deploying into Syria. That US “president” was complicit in the birth of ISIS.
In June 2014, Aaron Klein of WorldNetDaily, whose sources in the Middle East consistently provide solid information, reported that Jordanian officials said “dozens of ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.” This account was confirmed independently by Der Spiegel and the UK Guardian. Released in 2009 by the US “president’s” closing of an Iraqi prison, the ISIS leader Abu Duaa, now known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, transformed al Qaeda in Iraq into the Islamic State. As you can see, there is a lot more to this story—sordid politics, hidden agendas, and prophecy in layers moving forward.
