Dhaka restaurant attack

[Jim Eshelman]

Six Islamic State commandoes attacked and held the Holey Artisan Bakery (23N48'09" 90E25'00"), a popular tourist restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh, July 1, 2016, at 9:20 PM in an assault characterized by military-precise planning and execution. Though Bangladesh has suffered many assaults recently, this was the worst and most impactful terrorist assault in the country's history.

Armed with guns, swords, and bombs, they gruesomely "hacked patrons to death" (NY Times) and circulated digital photos of the carnage. Twenty-two hostages, two police officers, and the five assailants were killed (29 in all). Another 50 people were wounded. Dhaka (Bangladesh's capital) was in police lockdown overnight.

After an 11-hour standoff, Bangladeshi troops stormed the restaurant July 2 at 7:40 AM and killed the six attackers.

ANALYSIS: We are now in the Jupiter-Saturn-Pluto zone I wrote about in this month's predictions. Progressed solar ingress Moons aspect Saturn and Pluto, and a Jupiter ribbon runs through it. This began exactly as this attack was warming up, and you can see the details in the Bridge section below. Between now and mid-July, but especially after 7/11, I expect this and other tragedies to be routine, nearly daily; and those that are human-caused will most often have a thread of ethnic, religious, or ferocious ideological motivation.

The time period was narrowed by the Bridge to within a few days. The Arisolar is dominated by Uranus and Pluto. The Caplunar though confusing, but is primarily dominated by Saturn-Neptune and the recurring Moon-Uranus aspects; the latter are routine for explosions, surprise attacks, and more.

The day looks bizarre at first, with Venus-Jupiter so prominent. Remember, though, that this is exactly what we saw for the Paris attacks when the targets were cafes, pleasant restaurant areas, entertainment, etc. This attack was on a popular tourist restaurant with many internationals. The target was not arbitrary, and is part of the fabric of the event. It is especially the lunar progressions that time the event to incredibly well.

Year: Capsolar
Moon on Dsc (2°36')
Pluto on IC (9°51')

Bridge
CapQ Moon sq. s. Pluto 6/27-8/19
t. Jupiter sq. Cansolar Asc 6/28-7/16
CanQ Moon sq. p. Saturn 7/1-7/16
Event window: July 1-16

Quarter: Arisolar
Uranus conj. Dsc (0°08'), sq. MC (0°08')
Pluto on IC (3°33')
Sun conj. Dsc (4°27')
Moon on MC (7°25')
-- Moon-Sun sq. (2°58' in mundo)
Venus on Dsc (9°49')

Month: Caplunar
Moon-Uranus sq. (1°01')
Neptune on IC (0°27')
Mercury on WP (0°12')
Saturn sq. MC (1°06')
-- Saturn-Neptune sq. (0°17')
-- Mercury-Saturn op. (3°23')
Jupiter on MC (3°32')
-- Jupiter-Saturn sq. (1°40')
-- Mercury-Jupiter sq. (0°52')
(Other, borderline or just-too-wide aspects among Mercury, Neptune, and Jupiter.)

Week: Arilunar (Dormant,) Moon-Uranus conj. (0°51').

Day: Capsolar Quotidian
p. MC sq. s. Jupiter (0°25')
p. Asc sq. s. Venus (0°37')
p. Moon sq. s. Pluto (0°51')

Day: Cansolar Quotidian & Transits
p. Moon sq. p. Saturn (0°59')
------------------------------------
t. Jupiter sq. s. Asc (1°31')


SUMMARY
Year: Moon (Pluto).
Bridge: Pluto (Cap). Jupiter Saturn (Can).
-- Quarter: Uranus (Moon Sun Venus Pluto). Moon-Sun.
Month: Mercury Saturn Neptune (Jupiter). Moon-Uranus Mercury-Jupiter-Saturn Saturn-Neptune.
-- Week: (Dormant.) Moon-Uranus.
Day (CapQ): Venus Jupiter. Moon-Pluto.
-- Day (Cansolar): Moon-Saturn (CanQ). Jupiter (transit).

[Jim Eshelman]

I just found an extraordinary example buried in this event, and wanted to document it here and share it with you.

Remember, I'm exploring the question of whether mundane aspects are viable between planets on the prime vertical and planets on the horizon or meridian. I've already determined from repeated tests that being on the prime vertical - the Vertex-Antivertex line measured mundanely - has no value at all in these ingresses (just as ecliptical conjunctions to the Vertex axis have no value). It would be easy to think otherwise in this one case until you look more closely.

Separate from the question of whether being on the Vertex axis means anything (it doesn't) is the question of whether mundane aspects of, say, one planet on this axis and one planet on the meridian are valid, or (as we see in this case, reinforced in many other examples) mundane aspects formed only from proximity to the PV.

Calculate the Capsolar for this event. It's boring. It's so boring that I gave it a score of 0 (zero). Moon is closely angular and Pluto is barely foreground, so wide as not to make me want to weigh it in very heavily in identifying the kind of event.

Calculate this Capsolar. Look at it. See the distribution of planets. There don't seem to be any massively tight concentrations of conjunctions or oppositions, foreground or not. It's boring.

Now do an Azimuth analogue of the chart, and get ready to get your mind blown! Six planets are within 3° of the Vertex-Antivertex axis (the prime vertical) in azimuth, i.e., they are due east-west within 3°. Here they are:

Moon is 1°07' past Vx
Mars is 0°24' past Av
Jupiter is 1°12' past Av
Saturn is 2°54' before Av
Uranus is 1°42' past Vx
Neptune is 1°48' past Vx

Now, this quasi-angularity alone (based on other, larger studies) isn't what's important. What's important are the aspects between them. Using only the above planets (it's tempting to use Sun and Venus aspects to these, but let's keep it clean and straightforward), we get the following list:

Moon-Mars opposition 0°42' +2
Moon-Jupiter opposition 0°05' +1
Moon-Uranus conjunction 0°36' +2
Moon-Neptune conjunction 0°41' +2
Mars-Jupiter conjunction 0°48' +2
Mars-Saturn conjunction 3°18' +2
Mars-Uranus conjunction 1°18' +2
Mars-Neptune conjunction 1°23' +2
Jupiter-Uranus opposition 0°30' +1
Jupiter-Neptune opposition 0°36' 0
Uranus-Neptune conjunction 0°05' +2

This is... a rather spectacular description of the event! Even the aspect I scored 0, the Jupiter-Neptune opposition, probably fits because of the ethnic-religious elements that predominated, though I scored it neutrally because it could go either way on meaning. Every one of the other aspects is a direct zinger-hit as squarely as one might want.

Presuming this way of reading aspects continues to be substantiated, this will elevate this Score 0 chart to a Score +3.