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Click
to listen (3.1 Mb MP3) 
Sunday, 9 March 2003
(published here
with permission from RVI Radio World)
Last week in Radio World we took a look at
dxing.info, the excellent website of Mika
Mäkeläinen. He has made a comprehensive
guide to monitoring
radio stations to and from Iraq. Several
stations are run by the Iraqi National Accord,
INA, or in Arabic: al-Wifaq al-Watani al-Iraq.
The INA is an opposition group of military
and security officers who have defected from
Iraq. It was created by the British intelligence
service MI6, but has received extensive support
from the CIA since the mid-1990s. The stations
run by the INA with money from the CIA are
all broadcasting to Iraq from Kuwait, using
a 50-kW transmitter. We already looked at
two of them: Radio al-Mustaqbal (The Future),
on 1575 kHz, and Radio Idha'at Wadi al-Rafidayn
(Twin Rivers Radio) on 1566 kHz.
The latest addition to the INA stations is
Radio Tikrit.
SOUND Radio Tikrit (listen
to Radio World via audio link on this page)
Also this station is in
the upper end of the mediumwave, on 1584 kHz.
Tikrit is a town some 170 km north of Baghdad.
This might not mean much to you, but it is
the place where the great leader Saddam Hussein
was born and where most of his entourage hail
from. Radio Tikrit broadcasts from 1900-2100
UTC, using that same transmitter in Kuwait.
And then there is also
Radiyo al-Ma'ulumat, Information Radio, another
anti-Saddam station sponsored by the U.S.
SOUND Information Radio
Radiyo al-Ma'ulumat is
supposed to weaken support for Saddam Hussein
among the Iraqi people and military. The station
is on the air five hours a day, and at least
part of the broadcasts come from U.S. aircraft
flying near or over Iraq. As previously in
Afghanistan, the knowledgeable Mika says,
EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft of the Air
Force 193d Special Operations Wing are used
for the transmissions.
Broadcasts began on December 12, 2002, and
according to leaflets dropped in Iraq, the
station can be heard from 1500-2000 UTC on
693 and 756 kHz mediumwave, 9715 and 11292
kHz shortwave and 100.4 MHz FM.
DXers have heard the station on shortwave
only.
Information Radio is part of the U.S. Psychological
Operations, and the programming is prepared
by the 4th Psychological Operations Group
at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Let's move on to Ashur
Radio, the Voice of the Assyrian Democratic
Movement, seeking autonomy for the Assyrian
minority in Northern Iraq.
SOUND Ashur Radio
The movement was established
in April 1979, and Ashur Radio went on the
air in April 2000. Programmes are in Arabic
and Assyrian and are aired from Irbil in the
north of Iraq on 9155 kHz, and was heard from
1000-1100 and later, until 1745 UTC.
The Iraqi Communist party
also has a radio station:
SOUND Voice of Iraqi People
Sawt al-Sha'ab al-Iraqi,
or Voice of Iraqi People is broadcasting from
Iraqi Kurdistan, presumably. The station broadcasts
in Arabic in the mornings, closing down at
0530 UTC, and in the evenings from 1725-1845
or 1855 UTC on 3900 kHz. Dxing.info adds that
it occasionally drifts between 3899 and 3902
kHz.
The station was recently reported on 5897
kHz. The Voice of Iraqi People has an address
in London and can also be reached by email.
An estimated 40 per cent
of the Iraqis are Shi'ite muslims, and many
are opposed to the regime, so it is not surprising
that they too have a radio station. This is
called the Voice of Islamic Revolution in
Iraq, operated by the Supreme Council for
Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
SOUND: Voice of Islamic
Revolution in Iraq
This Sawt al-Thawrah al-Islamiyah
fi al-Iraq began broadcasting in 1991 on shortwave
from Iran, where the Shi'ites are in power.
The station can be heard regularly with a
stable signal, signing on around 0330 UTC
on 7100 and 9535 kHz.
This station too, has an address in London.
That's it for this week.
In the next edition of Radio World it's already
time to look at our new summer schedule.
FRANS VOSSEN
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