Radio Voice of Mujahedin on 720 kHz

[Pentti Lintujärvi]

I heard an Arabic -speaking station on 720 kHz on 11th of April at 16:18-16:30 UTC. It gave it's ID clearly as 'Huna idha'at Sawt til' Mujahedin' several times. Words 'shawra til' islamiya' repeated also.
What is it?
There is a shortwave station called Voice of Mujahedin targeting Iran and transmitting in Farsi. But this was speaking Arabic and (probably) targeting Iraq. There are couple of powerful transmitter in Iran on this frequency. The word 'Mujahedin' means 'Freedom Fighter', so it can be deployed by many oppositional organizations. Could this be pro-shia -mouslim station targeting Iraq sponsored by Iranians? Or a title of a new 'radio channel' of IRIB?

[Pentti Lintujärvi]

I listened to this station again on the evening of 17th of April at 1717 UTC. This time the ID was more comprehensive. It went something like this (be warned, the transliteration is far away from perfect): 'Sawt'ul Mujahedin. Idha'atu kumulati ta ikum ala mouzeti FM. Megda ruha 90.1 ('tizayn bareza wahid') megahertz. Balakalika ala mouzatyn mutawaka tatem, tuluha 720 ('sabamea wa ishrin-a') kilohertz."
So it appears to be an established station with fixed frequencies. The signal is powerful; it is among first ones to pop up in the band as the twilight zone comes near.

But what is it? My bet is on one of the listed Iranian transmitter sites; Tayebad or Shahr-e-Kord. Maybe the latter one?

[Tarek Zeidan]

hello my friend,

well....I 'll give it a try this evening and keep you posted....if that was in Arabic....then hopefully I'll be able to avoid the QRM from the arabic section of the BBC!

all the best my friends

Tarek Zeidan

[Tarek Zeidan]

Hello Dxers,

I managed to get V O Mujahidin on 16.35 UTC with QRM from the BBC Arabic there was an analysis about the current situation in Iraq saying that they replaced Saddam with gardener....followed by a man shouting in a very high tone.."MY Dear Iraqi Brothers ...Fight those unbelievers fight the Americans ....ALLAH AKBAR.."followed by a patriotic song then an ID..huna Idhaat Sout Al Mujahidin, followed by a sort of chanting song with no music...as they don't play musical hits - just like IRIB's Arabic section - followed by an OM welcoming the listeners and wishing them that they enjoy the next program which called the "religious follow ship" very had to translate that..mainly religious talk about who was Iraq ruled from a religious point of view followed by another patriotic song.

17.00 UTC ID and the detailed news, the Friday prayer in Baghdad followed by a demo.

17.05 till 17.15 had to run and record the latest shots of saddam hussien walking in Baghdad taken on 9/4/03 aired by Abu Dhabi TV and followed by the last speech by Saddam which didn't have the chance to go on the air on Baghdad radio. ( exclusive Abu Dhabi TV) great stuff really

17.16 news commentary about thousands of ppl. prayed the Friday prayers in Karba'laa and alnajaf..criticizing that the Media didn't show the Friday prayers in these shiiet cities..don't those who represent 70% of the Iraqi ppl shedding some media light on them?

followed by a another chanting sad song for the shiiet..same chanting I used to hear in the Arabic section of IRIB..with an ID Dear listeners U R listening to V O Mhjahideen around 17.20 UTC ....contentious chanting till 17.27 ID Huna Idhaat sout al mujahideen..followed by the well known patriotic song ALLAH AKBAR ( BTW it's now the national anthem of Libya..but originally it's an Egyptian song released during the British,frensh and Israeli attack on Egypt 1956 which known as Suez crisis)

17.30 an ID and then a news brief , mainly about the situation in Iraq and some world news related to it.

fading....but anyway ..typically Iranian style beamed to the Iraqi Shiiet more to come after some more observations.

all the best from cairo,

Tarek Zeidan
Cairo,EGYPT

[Mika Mäkeläinen]

Congratulations to Pentti for your EXCELLENT finding and many thanks to Tarek for your detailed observations on the programming! I also heard this station yesterday evening, and posted a recording of the station identification in the Audio section of DXing.info. As you can hear, the reception quality was not too good... used a random wire now that I have taken down my K9AY for the summer so that our backyard can be used for other activities than just DXing...

BBC Monitoring Service caught the following station identification: "Voice of the Mujahidin, the radio of freedom, the radio of the truth. Our esteemed listeners everywhere, our programmes come to you on 90.1 MHz FM and on 720 kHz mediumwave." The Service is speculating that the Voice of Mujahedin is run by SCIRI and is hinting that it could be a replacement for the Voice of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, "which was observed intermittently in the 1980s and 1990s on frequencies used by the Iranian radio's Arabic service. This radio has not been observed by BBC Monitoring in recent years." This is interesting, because when I scanned the frequencies in February and March for the article "Monitoring Iraq: War of the Airwaves", the Voice of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq was a piece of cake, heard every morning on 7100 and 9535 kHz. I haven't checked it recently, but here's a sample station identification from the end of February.

(BTW: Radio Voice of the Mujahedin, the Voice of New Iraq and other recent radio developments in the area are listed in the News - I will no longer update the article "Monitoring Iraq", but eventually there will be a new article about the broadcasting scene in post-war Iraq. I guess that the BBC Monitoring Service now has a monitor in Iraq or Kuwait but probably no one else has logged the Voice of New Iraq? It's a very difficult frequency here. For those unable to hear anything on MW from around Iraq, in the news section there is news on Radio Bahrain back on shortwave, along with a station identification recorded yesterday.)