Libyan jamming of Al Jazeera, Alhurra, MBC and Thuraya during the 2011 uprising (February-March 2011)
What happened
During the first six weeks of the 2011 Libyan uprising, several satellite services carrying coverage into and out of Libya were jammed. The Committee to Protect Journalists recorded that Al Jazeera's signal had been intermittently jammed since 2 February and intensified after the anti-government protests began, that Alhurra was being jammed on Nilesat, and that the Voice of Free Libya radio station was experiencing interference. On 23 February Al Jazeera published alternate frequencies for viewers, naming its jammed Arabsat carrier at 11680.8 Horizontal and offering alternates on Hot Bird, Badr 4/Eurobird 2, Nilesat and Atlantic Bird 4A; the network blamed Libya's intelligence services and said it had traced the source to a Libyan intelligence technical administration building south of Tripoli. On 1 March Thuraya Telecommunications said it had conclusive evidence that Libya was the source of unlawful and intentional jamming of its signals in Libya and surrounding areas, affecting Thuraya 2 at 44 degrees east; Thuraya's statement was that unlawful and intentional jamming of its signals had taken place from within Libya, despite Libya being one of its shareholders. On the evening of 8 March the MBC bouquet of a dozen channels including Al Arabiya went off air; MBC holds a complete transponder on Nilesat, its technicians placed the jamming somewhere southeast of Tripoli, and as at Thursday 10 March the channels were still off their normal frequencies and retransmitting on new ones.
MERGED RECORD. The brief listed only the MBC episode. It is recorded here together with the Al Jazeera, Alhurra and Thuraya episodes because the four fall inside the same six weeks, in the same country, with the same alleged actor, and because the sources treat them as one campaign; the MBC episode on its own rests on a single trade report. Attribution is the weak point: every trace on the record was performed by an affected party (Al Jazeera, MBC's technicians, Thuraya) and no regulator or independent geolocation firm is cited, which is why confidence is moderate rather than high.
Attack vector
Transmission of interfering carriers into the receive bands of multiple commercial satellites serving Libya and the surrounding region, from ground sites in the Tripoli area, against the transponders carrying international news channels and against a mobile satellite service.
Operational impact
Intermittent loss of Al Jazeera on its primary Arabsat carrier, forcing published frequency changes; jamming of Alhurra on Nilesat; loss of the MBC bouquet of a dozen channels including Al Arabiya from 8 March, still off their normal frequencies on 10 March; interference to Thuraya mobile satellite service in Libya and neighbouring areas; interference to a local radio station.
Affected segments
link, space, user
Disclosed
2011-02-23
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
Four independent sources describe intentional radio-frequency interference against satellite services over the same period, with named affected carriers and spacecraft. SPARTA's bibliography cites the MBC episode at EX-0016.02; the parent technique is mapped here because it is the claim every source supports.
The MBC episode carries the evidence. The whole MBC bouquet of a dozen channels went off air together and MBC holds a complete transponder on Nilesat, so the unit that failed was the transponder, not any one channel or any one locality; the channels were still off their normal frequencies two days later and had to retransmit on new ones. Transponder capture requires an emitter inside the spacecraft's receive footprint radiating at the uplink frequency, which is EX-0016.01's geometry. Derived because no source names the uplink and because MBC's own localisation is a direction, not a geolocation.
Two affected broadcasters independently placed emitters in the Tripoli area: Al Jazeera at a named building south of the capital, MBC's technicians southeast of it. Fixed transmitting sites outside the authorised ground architecture match IA-0008.01's description. Derived twice over: for the usual tactic reason, and because both traces are by interested parties.
Separately attested and distinct from the denial above: CPJ records Al Jazeera's signal as intermittently jammed since 2 February, intensifying later, and Voice of Free Libya as experiencing interference. Intermittent impairment over a period is IMP-0002.
A dozen MBC channels off air, and Al Jazeera's primary Arabsat carrier unusable to the point that the network published alternates. Temporary elimination of access to a service without physical damage.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
SPARTA's bibliography cites the MBC episode here. The transponder-wide simultaneous loss of a dozen channels carried on one Nilesat transponder is not a downlink-jamming signature, which is bounded by each receiving terminal's field of view. See the cross-cutting finding in gap-analysis.md.
SPARTA carries a citation about pro-Qaddafi forces hijacking a Libyan TV signal, which would be content substitution rather than jamming and would map here. No source retrievable in this session documents that event, so it is neither mapped nor recorded. Flagged in gap-analysis.md.
Considered because Al Jazeera moved between satellites and frequencies. No source says the jammer followed those moves, so the mapping would rest on the assumption that it did. Contrast the Bahrain and Egypt records, where sources state that frequency changes did not shake the jamming off.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
- MBC hit by Libya satellite jammingTrade press
Tier 2: Broadcast-industry trade press; the source SPARTA's own bibliography carries for this episode.
Tier 2: Press-freedom monitoring organisation reporting from named local contacts; independent of the affected broadcasters.
Tier 2: First-party notice by the affected broadcaster, listing its own affected and alternate frequencies: authoritative on its own carriage, an interested party on attribution.
Tier 3: Independent satellite-tracking blog; used only to date and corroborate the Thuraya component, citing Reuters and Thuraya's own press release.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.