Do you get phone calls from nowhere?
About a year ago, I began to recieve a wonderful series of calls from America and London
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.My Lebanese mobile phone has long been the victim of gremlins who would surely make Edward Snowden lick his lips. For months, I have received calls from Canada which registered on my receiver to a series of non-existent numbers with the direct-dial code of Turkey.
Then I began to receive, about a year ago, a wonderful series of calls from America and London which registered on my mobile as follows: 00 278. I called the number, and a recorded voice asked me to leave a message.
Difficult to do – since no country exists with a 278 suffix. A glance at direct-dial codes suggests this mythical nation must be somewhere in southern Africa between Kenya (254), Uganda (256), Zambia (260), Lesotho (266), Botswana (267), the Comoros (269) and Eritrea (291). What outlandish listening post in this non-state is wasting its time on my phone, I ask myself?
Why, only last week, a call to my Lebanese mobile from an Irish telephone registered as a number in Madrid (00 349 12020000). Once more, the number did not exist. Same with a call from an acquaintance in Tehran who called me on Friday; his number came up on my phone with a British 00 44 1269 code and a number which, yet again – like the code itself – is a fake. Any other readers suffering the same problems?
Then again, when I arrived in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe in 2008, my Lebanese mobile welcomed me to Russia. And when I stood on the northern bank of the Amu Darya river (classical Oxus) which separates Tajikistan from Afghanistan, my mobile welcomed me to the United Arab Emirates.
Then I knew for certain that my phone was in the hands of US intelligence.
More from Robert Fisk this week here: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/syrian-rebels-have-taken-iconoclasm-to-new-depths-with-shrines-statues-and-even-a-tree-destroyed--but-to-what-end-9021017.html