The title makes it sound like a Hardy Boys or Brains Benton mystery, doesn't it? Well, as time has gone on, it's become less of a mystery, though there’s still one large point to be discovered — one that might be crucial.
First, though, let’s refresh the story.Here's the link.
Then, on Thursday morning, Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe posted this on YouTube.OK, that's the background and where we have been in solving this question for the last few days. Here's where we get into Sherlock Holmes mode, with observation and deduction. In other words, educated guesswork. (Donning my deerstalker cap.)
My own initial leaning on the point on the first day of Epic Fury, when this subject first came up, was that it was the Iranians running the numbers station, trying to activate sleeper cells elsewhere in the world (their own doomsday option, which would most likely target the U.S. and Western Europe), which seemed a likely answer. Who would be jamming it seemed likely the U.S. or Israel.
Thing is, as time has gone on and with more discovery, there are a couple of clues that run afoul of that idea. For one thing, given what we have seen of the other jammers in the region that I have mentioned (and more I have not, by the way) that are more obviously Iranian-run, and their similarity to this one, the question becomes why the Iranians would be jamming their own cell activation signal. That doesn't make sense.
Also, the condition of the numbers station transmitter, as evidenced by the signal quality, suggests a new — or at least well-maintained — system, which you would think unlikely from Iran in its current state.
Finally, with all the bombs we've been dropping in the area, you would think that if the U.S. and/or Israel believed it was the Iranian government sending the messages to sleeper cells, they'd see the station as a strategic bombing target and silence it. They have not. That would be odd if it were the Iranians, since we have the ability to trace down longstanding signals like these, particularly when they run on a fairly regular schedule, as they've done in this case. Tracing it down and silencing it would be fairly easy. None of that has happened.
So, at the moment, the logic is that the numbers station is most likely run by either the CIA or Mossad, trying to signal opposition groups within—or nearby—Iran. The consensus on who is running the jammers at this point appears to be the Iranians, since they will always try to silence, by whatever means, any opposition. Also, the technology being used by the jammers is exactly the same as what is used against anti-Islamic regime broadcasters, such as Radio Free Europe (RFE), the BBC, and Radio Farda, which is a native anti-regime station broadcasting from somewhere in the region.
So, it’s far more likely that it is not the Iranians but one of the Western powers running the numbers station. That being the case, the obvious suspects are the Iranians running the jammers.
The crucial point I mentioned at the top is the question of who those encrypted messages are intended for. Resistance operating inside Iran seems most likely, but don’t eliminate the Kurds, who would be a logical candidate. Azerbaijan is another possibility, since we know they’ve already gone on high alert. Cells within Iran itself, however, seem most likely to be the intended recipients of the messages.
An interesting factor here is that the code to unscramble these messages would need to have been agreed upon by both the transmitters and the receivers well in advance of their use. That suggests planning weeks, if not months, ahead of the actual beginning of the attack.
Now, you know as much as we do here on this subject.
