This is 5 and 10 on Skywatch TV for October 17th.
I'm Derek Gilbert, topic number five today, Israel hits Syria.
The Israeli military said Monday that it struck and destroyed an anti-aircraft battery deep
inside Syria after it opened fire on Israeli planes flying over the Lebanese-Syrian border.
This is the first incident where Syrian forces targeted Israeli planes since the Syrian civil
war began back in 2011.
Military spokesmen said the Israeli planes were conducting routine surveillance along
the border when they came under fire.
They weren't hit, returned to base safely, but in response Israel struck an anti-aircraft
battery about 30 miles east of Damascus.
This is not typical.
Russian forces inside Syria were notified in real time, so they weren't taken by surprise.
Again, this is highly unusual.
Meanwhile, Israel's Channel 2 is reporting that several senior commanders of the Islamic
state who recently fled from Iraq and northern Syria have turned up just across the border
on the Golan Heights, where they are training hundreds of new recruits to the Islamic State.
Channel 2 said the commanders made their way to an enclave close to the Israeli border
where they set up a training camp as many as 300 boys from the area now being trained
by the Islamic State.
Apparently this is part of what is becoming an open secret in the Middle East, and that
is that Israel prefers to see Sunni violent Sunni groups like the Islamic State or al-Qaeda
in Syria than Shia-backed groups like Hezbollah or, for that matter, the government of Bashar
al-Assad.
Now, of course, the main Shia power and supporter of violent Shia groups in the region is Iran.
But I think a day is coming when Israel is going to find out that the enemies of their
enemy aren't necessarily their friends.
Topic number four, the war for post-ISIS Iraq.
While we were in Oklahoma at the Blessed Hope Prophecy Conference, Iraq's military effectively
gained control of major assets and government buildings in the northern city of Kirkuk and
is now set to fully pacify it.
Kirkuk, as I said, northern Iraq, you can see it highlighted on the map here.
It's in the oil-rich region, mainly under the control and occupied by Kurds.
In fact, that was the home city or the capital city of the de facto independent Kurdish state.
You might remember a few weeks ago, they voted on a referendum to declare themselves independent
in spite of opposition from all of its neighbors, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Iran, even the United
States, which has been the main supporter of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria.
Of course, you did hear me use the words oil-rich.
That's a key element of this.
Those today finding that Iraqi forces are using American equipment to bulldoze images of Kurdistan
President Masoud Barzani.
Now, even though Kurdish media has been showing pictures of armed civilians taking to the
streets to resist this takeover by the Iraqi military, the city of Kirkuk has a large population
of Turkmen, and about 20% of the population there is Arab and Assyrian, and the Assyrians
are mainly Christian.
The Turkmen, the Arabs, and the Assyrians aren't really in favor of an independent Kurdish
government.
Now, again, the main prize in the region, the oil fields and the revenue that comes from
selling oil.
A senior Baghdad oil official told the Reuters news agency that we've got confirmation from
military commanders that it's a matter of a very short time and our brave forces will
regain control of all Kirkuk oil fields, and then we will restart oil production immediately.
The production continued right up until the weekend when the Iraqi forces moved in and
disrupted somewhat.
This has been the main source of revenue for the Kurdish government, but Baghdad wants
that money back.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is calling for calm on all sides.
Of course, ironically, both of the main forces fighting each other here are using American
weapons to shoot at each other.
The American embassy trying to remind both sides that the main cause here is getting rid
of ISIS.
But as I predicted on this program months ago, that once ISIS was taken out of the equation,
the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shias, the Turkmen, the Yazidis, the Assyrians would go back to
fighting each other, and that's sadly what is happening.
Topic number three, terror in Mogadishu, the death toll in the bombing that hit the center
of Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday continues to rise.
More than 300 people killed, hundreds more wounded in the truck bombing.
The scale of the loss makes the attack, which involved a truck packed with military-grade
explosives, the most lethal terrorist act anywhere in the world, in many years.
Monday morning, Somalia's information minister said 276 people had died.
As of today, Tuesday, that number has been raised to 320, and that number will probably
continue to increase as more missing people are found in the rubble.
Topic number two, Trump and Obamacare.
Another thing that happened while we were in Oklahoma, President Trump signed a couple
of executive orders aimed at the Affordable Care Act, critics, of course, complaining
that this is dismantling Obama's signature legislative accomplishment and taking healthcare
away from many low-income people.
Calm down.
President Trump's executive order will probably have less impact than his supporters' hope
and less impact than his critics' fear, but it is a step towards giving consumers more
choices for health insurance, expanding coverage, hopefully, at lower cost.
Now, understand that the order does not take away anyone's healthcare, does not remove
protection for people with pre-existing conditions.
Supporters such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who you see in the photo behind me, say the
order will make it easier for people to obtain large group coverage, which is generally considered
the best insurance you can have.
That's been my personal experience, but critics argue it could lure younger, healthier consumers
out of the health insurance market, thus raising costs for older, sicker people, forcing them
to pay higher premiums.
Now, if critics think younger, healthier people haven't already left the health insurance
market under Obamacare, then they just aren't paying attention.
That's exactly what's happened.
The younger, healthier people I know of who saw the healthcare premiums that they were
going to have to pay under the Affordable Care Act bailed because they generally don't
need doctoring on a regular basis and find that they can save thousands of dollars a
year by not having any insurance at all and just paying as they go.
But even older people who do need constant or fairly regular doctoring, like me, not
that I have any major health issues, I just keep my cholesterol monitored, and I do take
thyroid replacement because I tend to have low thyroid, but that's about it.
But because of that, I pay a much higher premium.
In fact, Sharon and I found that our costs to get a plan under the healthcare exchanges,
the health insurance exchanges, similar to what I had before when I was working for a
company that had thousands of employees, did $2 billion a year in business, would have
cost us about $26,000 a year.
Now we're doing okay financially, but not that okay.
And that's why the Obamacare health insurance exchanges are failing.
It is why here in our part of Missouri, there is only one health insurance company that's
still offering insurance plans at all.
In many parts of the country, there are people who don't have any options available under
the healthcare and health insurance exchanges.
So what the president's plan will do is let more small businesses join together to buy
coverage.
Trump is directing the Labor Department to study how to make it easier for small businesses
and possibly individuals to collectively buy health insurance through association health
plans and to shop across state lines.
This is huge.
By allowing more competition, employers can shop a broader range of plans, find the ones
that fit them best, and by increasing competition, hopefully bring down rates.
If anything, this is going to draw younger, healthier people back into the health insurance
market, not drive them away.
The order, the executive order, would also allow more consumers to purchase short-term
health insurance plans, directing agencies to lengthen the coverage of these policies,
permit renewals, and it will expand employers' ability to give workers cash to buy coverage
elsewhere.
And topic number one, California burning.
This is a story I am remiss in not having talked about last week because this is big.
Firefighters are making progress, but 15 major wildfires are still burning across Northern
California.
217,000 acres and counting been destroyed.
More than 5,700 structures destroyed.
Ruins eased up over the weekend, which gave firefighters a chance to get an upper hand
on some of these blazes.
Searchers are still looking through the charred ruins for victims.
So far, 41 people confirmed dead.
The most recent, the driver of a water tanker lost control of his truck on a downhill grade.
Two of the three most destructive fires in Northern California, more than half contained.
Some residents who fled from the fires in Sonoma County, that's wine country, could
be allowed to return home in the next day or so.
Again more than 5,700 buildings destroyed by more than a dozen wildfires, which is covered
in area larger than New York City.
The city of Santa Rosa, California lost entire neighborhoods.
About 11,000 firefighters still working to bring these fires under control.
This year's wildfire season, the worst, one of the worst anyway in U.S. history, nearly
8.6 million acres burned as of October 13th.
The worst on record for the same period in a year was 9.3 million back in 2015.
We're glad to be back home after the Blessed Hope Prophecy Conference, which was a wonderful
gathering about 2,000 believers gathered together in Norman, Oklahoma, 32 speakers on a wide
range of topics, from archeology to geopolitics to Bible prophecy, and it was really humbling
to hear from so many of you how much you appreciate these daily updates.
Thank you for watching.
It is a blessing to do what I do, but it was very encouraging to hear from so many of you.
So again, thank you, and please remember you can take these reports with you and download
them and watch them at your convenience on the Skywatch TV mobile app, which is available
for your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, your Android phone or tablet, your Kindle Fire tablet,
even Windows phones.
We've got an app for that.
They're all free, and you can download them from the link at skywatchtv.com.
Look in the top menu bar where it says Mobile App, and please remember you can also watch
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Just check the top menu bar.
You find all of my stuff posted at my website that's DerekPGilbert.com, and again, thank
you for watching as we keep watching.
I'm Derek Gilbert, and this is Skywatch TV.
The Trump administration is now vowing to crack down and punish deep state saboteurs.
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