Twelve hours after the US and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28, 2026, a shortwave radio signal started broadcasting in Persian — a man's voice, counting random numbers, followed by the word "tavajjoh" (attention) repeated three times. The signal, now designated V32 by the monitoring group Enigma2000, has been broadcasting nearly twice daily ever since, according to RFE/RL.
Numbers stations are shortwave radio broadcasts used to send coded messages to covert operatives in the field. A one-time pad, a single-use encryption key known only to sender and recipient, makes the code mathematically unbreakable. Akin Fernandez, who published the Conet Project, a 4-CD compendium of numbers station recordings, told RFE/RL: "Someone doesn't want the recipient to hear the numbers."
On March 4, someone tried. A "bubble jammer," the same cacophonous electronic noise used against Radio Farda, VOA Farsi, and BBC Farsi broadcasts, hit the frequency. The transmission moved to a different frequency and kept going. The radio enthusiast blog Priyom triangulated the transmitter's origin to a zone covering northern Italy, Switzerland, western Germany, eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The CIA didn't respond to queries. Priyom floated the possibility of a psychological operation; ABC News reported the US government had separately sent an alert about intercepted encrypted communications.
V32 is reportedly the first new numbers station to appear in years.
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