“If people had known how close we came to World War iii that day, there’d have been mass panic. … [Prime Minister Gordon Brown] really would have been dealing with the bloody book of Revelation and Armageddon.” These were the words of “a very senior British ministerial source,” quoted in the Spectator last October.

The source was referring to the September 6 strike Israel made against a military installation inside Syria.

“Apparently,” wroteTrumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry, “Syria was about to construct a nuclear facility. The Jews believe they cannot allow this to happen, since Syria is one of their nearest neighbors. Also, Syria is second only to Iran in state-sponsored terrorism! It isn’t hard to imagine Damascus giving nuclear devices to terrorists.”

Since last October, more evidence of a nuclear program has been uncovered. Ephraim Asculai wrote in the Jerusalem Post August 16:

In some old gangster films, as well as probably in real life, there is the scene where the victim is thrown into a building construction mold and drowned in a thick layer of cement. A telltale shoe that fell off in the old movies—and more recently the hidden security camera—provides the clues that bring the culprit to justice, even though the body has not been found. The case of Syria’s bombed Al-Kibar site holds many similarities to these gangster movie scenarios.The photographic evidence of the existence of a nuclear reactor under construction at the site was overwhelming: pictures of the reactor under construction, with great similarities to a North Korean plutonium production reactor, and its later camouflage by the construction of a surrounding building that completely enclosed the structure; the intake of water from the Euphrates River and the outlet of returning water from the building back into the downstream of the river, which indicated the existence of a strong energy source at the site. The most damning piece of evidence probably is the way the Syrians razed the site, poured concrete over it and claimed that it was some sort of a military site and not a nuclear reactor.

The article is a timely reminder that the world is not as safe as most people would like to think it is. Pakistan, a nation that already has nuclear missiles, is facing political chaos and internal strife. Iran continues to make progress in its nuclear weapons program while the world dithers.

Nuclear World War iii is unthinkable for most people. Yet it nearly happened back in September. As Gerald Flurry wrote last year, “Do we really know how insanely dangerous this world is?” For more information, read “Close to Armageddon.”