ISISISIS regards battle for Dabiq as an apocalyptic showdown of Muslim and Christian armies

This may not be the end of the ISIS caliphate – which military experts say will occur sometime during the second half of 2017 – but the Islamist organization views the coming battle for the town of Dabiq in apocalyptic terms nonetheless.

U.S.-backed Syrian opposition forces and Turkish military units are within forty-eight hours of reaching the ISIS-controlled Dabiq, which jihadists regard as the preordained site of the final apocalyptic battle between Muslims and Christians. 

Business Insider notes that Prophet Muhammad foretold 1,400 years ago “the last hour will not come” until an Islamic army defeated “the Romans” there. ISIS view the Americans and their regional supporters as the Romans.

Dabiq, located northeast of Aleppo near the Turkish border, has no strategic value, but the Islamists are likely to defend it as long as they can because of it theological value. In the past few weeks the organization has sent several hundred of its most experienced fighters to defend the town, which came under its control in 2014.

Some 300 U.S. Special Forces are providing support to Free Syrian Army fighters, who have been steadily pushing south to remove ISIS fighters from areas along the Turkish border.

Brett McGurk, Washington’s special envoy for the U.S.-led coalition, Tweeted on Monday that “The coalition actively supporting the rebels as they advance to within a few kilometers of (its) weakening stronghold” of Dabiq.

U.S. commanders say that taking Dabiq would be a blow to ISIS morale, especially as the groups will soon lose Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria – the two largest cities held by the Islamists.

ISIS emphasized the theological significance of Dabiq, even naming one of its two main English-language propaganda magazines after the town.

“The spark has been lit in Iraq, and its heat will continue to intensify — by Allah’s permission — until it burns the Crusader armies in Dabiq,” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of Isil’s founders, said in a 2015 issue of the magazine. 

Military analysts say, however, that the coming loss in Dabiq is not likely to dent the group’s resolve.

“If they lose the battle, I’m sure they’ll fold it into their narrative of ‘in God’s good time’, said Kyle Orton of the Henry Jackson Society think-tank. “The idea is that there is much suffering and many setbacks needed before the promised land.”