Ninetieth edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Sun, 02 Jan 2005 13:16:41 +0000)

2004 Clandestine activity survey

I received Mathias Kropf's annual press release about clandestine activity. The number of broadcasting hours may have decreased but the number of jammers seems to remain the same.

"During the year 2004 the activity of political clandestine stations broadcasting on shortwave has decreased by 28.5 % to 1229 Weekly Broadcasting Hours (WBHs). This is the lowest level of activity since 1999 and the second lowest ever since this survey has first been compiled in 1986.

Activity by clandestine stations on the Asian continent has decreased by 35% or 495 WBHs to now 920 WBHs with the five most active target areas (countries) all in a declining trend. Clandestine activity to target areas on the American, African and Oceanian continents has remained more or less unchanged from last year at 166, 127 and 16 WBHs respectively.

The three most active target areas worldwide remain exactly in the same ranking as one year ago: Iraq with 332 WBHs (-416 when compared with one year ago), North Korea with 168 (-49) WBHs and Afghanistan with 165 (-24) WBHs.

Despite the declining trend that is obvious in all of the figures above, it should also be noted that the number of different target areas active worldwide has increased by three to 24. So, the trend towards more diverse, but also mostly low-budget operations, is apparently still intact, and has been only temporarily overshadowed by operations on the Afghanistan/Iraq scenes."