Paris, Nice Attacks & Nostradamus’ Predictions

The macabre attacks on Paris, in Nov 2015, was followed with an attack on Nice yesterday leading to the French President, Francois Hollande, extending the emergency provisions by 3 more months. Excluding the attacks in troubled areas like Syria, Afghanistan & Libya it is disconcerting to note that from Nov 2015 till date about 100 attacks have been staged across various locations – Bamako (Mali on 20^th Nov), Tunis (Tunisia on 24^th Nov), San Bernardino (US on Dec 2^nd), Istanbul (Turkey on Jan 12^th, Mar 19^th & June 28^th ), Jakarta (Indonesia on Jan 14^th ), Ouagadougou(Burkina Faso on Jan 15^th ) , Ankara (Turkey on Feb 17^th & on Mar 13^Th)  Mogadishu (Somalia on Feb 26^th & June 2nd), Grand Bassam resort (Ivory Coast on Mar 13^th ), Aktobe(Kazakhstan on June 5^th-10^th ), Mukalla (Yemen on May 15^th ), Pulse nightclub Orlando (US on June 12th) , Dhaka (Bangladesh on July 1st) et al. The spread of attacks is wide & the main perpetuator has been the ISIS with Al – Qaeda playing catch up to maintain relevance & the strategic responses from the sole superpower have left much to be desired. The US appears’ more keen on the removal of Assad as the Syrian President than the destruction of the ISIS; officially, though, they maintain that both should go. It is time they identify who the bigger enemy is & work decisively on its decimation; else the lure of the caliphate & its cause would attract the devout unleashing a vicious cycle difficult to contain.

Sunni Saudi Arabia & its Arabic GCC (Gulf co-operation council) allies want a Shia, Assad’s removal to blunt the influence of Shia Iran & have quietly acquiesced to the continuance of ISIS caliphate. Iran along with Russia wants to protect Assad - a cruel despot - & finish off the ISIS. Israel wants the current impasse to continue for peace in the Middle East would mean the withdrawal of the American forces imperiling its existence; it wants to finish off the Hezbollah in Lebanon & Hamas in Palestine - arraigned against the Israeli state - supported by Iran & this enmity with Iran makes it a strange bedfellow with Saudi Arabia.  Turkey has surreptitiously been allowing ISIS transit rights through its territory to sell oil helping the outfit earn about $1 billion in annual revenues; ISIS earns another $1 billion through kidnappings & taxes making it a dangerous outfit having a steady source of revenues unlike the outfits like the Al –Qaeda which relied largely on donations.  It is holding territory & appearing to follow the tactics employed by the LTTE in Sri-Lanka; coupled with vicious propaganda on social media- a weapon that LTTE lacked - helps in indoctrination & mobilization efforts & easily attracts converts to execute lone wolf attacks. Surely, unless the ISIS is finished financially, & the caliphate’s territory disintegrates, the spread of its ideology & the lure of the cause are unlikely to diminish. Was the disintegration of the USSR not achieved through propaganda on Voice on America apart from other channels which forced supporters to lose interest & confidence in the cause? Off course other covert means accelerated the process. A replication of the same strategy is an urgent need.

A coordinated attempt across the world to encourage Islamic moderates to reinterpret Islam Sunnah & Hadith & running a propaganda war to counter the diabolical one spread by ISIS on social media is an urgent need. Such initiatives should necessarily originate in the Islamic states for greater acceptance; else the strategy could be counter-productive for zealots rush in when they mistakenly perceive that “Islam is under seize”. Thus, without coordinated action, on multiple fronts, war against the ISIS is waiting to be lost. Perhaps, the predictions of the French soothsayer, Nostradamus regarding World War 3 (WW 3) are for real & he predicts that we shall lose many battles against the ISIS before winning the war eventually.

In Quatrain 30, the rise of the 3^rd anti - Christ – the first being Napoleon & the 2^nd Hitler – more tyrannical than Hannibal, in the Middle East, is predicted. Does it refer to Abu Bakr Al- Baghdadi the head of the Islamic caliphate?

Quatrain 43 predicts an attack on Paris & perhaps an attempt by the British to provide succour to the French. Chillingly it predicts that Paris for a long time shall remain uninhabited. Quatrain 19 & 80 talk about the attack on French coastal cities Ervins, Antibes & Nice vide a “shining metal” perhaps a reference to some new weapon of mass destruction. Or does it predict some nuclear weapon deployed post being stolen or willingly supplied by a rogue state? Unfortunately, Nice has happened & perhaps more are waiting to be unleashed. Use of germ warfare on the town of Agda is predicted in Quatrain 21.

Quatrain 97, of this treatise talks about attacks across 45^th parallel; incidentally some of the cities that lie across this latitude include New York & Rome. Is 9/11 going to be repeated? Quatrain 65 talks about the successful attack on Rome, perhaps to challenge the papal authority with the dire prediction that the Pope shall be forced to evacuate; attack on Rome shall extend for a week says Quatrain 41.

Quatrain 31 predicts a 3^rd World War on 3 fronts: Media, Arabia & Armenia. However post the initial successes by the tyrant, quatrain 16 predicts that armies from London, Brussels & Ghent shall launch a counterattack & be eventually successful, though Switzerland could become the sacrificial lamb. The resurrection of the Vatican is predicted in quatrain 74 while quatrain 97 predicts the final battle at Syria, Judea & Palestine which leads to 750 years of peace as per quatrain 89.

Surely the 750 years of unending peace is reassuring but the realization that we seem headed for WW3 is chilling.