Apocalypse some other time

Dabiq is the Syrian village that ISIS promised would be the scene of an apocalyptic showdown, an Armageddon, in which Muslims would win a great battle against the infidels, consisting of 80 nations each ten thousand strong. But recently, as I noted here, ISIS had to abandon Dabiq under pressure from Free Syrian rebels backed by Turkish and U.S. air power.

ISIS’s occupation ended not with an apocalypse, but a whimper.

ISIS has an explanation, though. Will McCants of Jihadica reports that ISIS says the conditions for its apocalyptic prophesy were not present in Dabiq just now. For one thing, the “Mahdi,” a messiah figure, did not appear to lead the battle (the reason for his no-show is unclear). Not only that, the expected 80 infidel armies did not turn up to be defeated.

Prophesy is a difficult racket.

Just two years ago, ISIS was saying, “We are waiting for you in Dabiq,; try to come and we will kill every single soldier.” It’s a long way from that talk to “We said we’d crush 80 eighty nations, each ten thousand strong; we didn’t say anything about defeating a band rebels backed by two nations.”

I doubt that ISIS’s fall back position will be persuasive to even the biggest loser surfing the web in his parents’ basement looking for somewhere to act out his psychopathic fantasies.

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