Internet monitors said over the weekend that widespread service disruptions in Asia and the Middle East appear to have been caused by damage to undersea cables in the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia. It was not immediately clear if the cable damage was caused by deliberate sabotage.
Microsoft reported “increased network latency on traffic routes through the Middle East” due to “undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea” on Friday.
“Network traffic is not interrupted as Microsoft has rerouted traffic through alternate network paths. We do expect higher latency on some traffic that previously traversed through the Middle East,” the bulletin said.
Netblocks, a website that monitors Internet freedom and censorship efforts, on Friday observed “degraded Internet connectivity in multiple countries, including Pakistan and India.”
Netblocks concurred with Microsoft that the problem was caused by “a series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea,” specifically in key cable systems near the coastal city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
“Meanwhile, similar internet disruptions have been observed on Etilasat and Du networks in the United Arab Emirates, resulting in slow speeds and intermittent access as engineers work to resolve the issue impacting multiple countries,” Netblocks added.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd. (PTCL), Pakistan’s largest telecom provider, also warned of degraded Internet service due to damaged undersea cables near Jeddah. Kuwaiti officials said local Internet service disruptions were caused by damage to another Red Sea cable carrying Internet traffic to their country.
There are non-sinister explanations for damage to undersea cables, such as accidental damage from ships dropping anchor near them, and destructive underwater natural events. Deliberately dropping anchor near the cables and dragging the anchor to damage them is also a convenient means of sabotage.
Ever since the terrorists of Hamas launched the Gaza war on October 7, 2023, there have been fears their allies in Yemen — the Iran-backed Houthi insurgents — could attack Internet cables in the Red Sea. The Houthis frequently attack ships in the Red Sea with drones and missiles to support Hamas.
In early 2024, telecom companies linked to the internationally-recognized legitimate government of Yemen warned the Houthis were planning to sabotage undersea cables. The warning was based, in part, on Houthi message traffic that showed maps of the undersea cables and mused that Yemen was in a “strategic location” to interfere with worldwide Internet traffic.
Soon after the Yemeni government issued that warning, four of the largest telecom networks in the region reported damage to their cables in the Red Sea.
As with this weekend’s incident, it was difficult to determine if the damage was natural, accidental, or malicious. It could also have been caused by the Houthi sinking of a commercial vessel that was attempting to cross the Red Sea at the time. The Houthis issued a statement formally denying any role in sabotaging the cables.
Yemeni information minister Moammar al-Eryani said on Saturday that the weekend’s Internet difficulties “cannot be isolated from the series of direct attacks carried out by the Houthi militia targeting undersea cables in the Red Sea, in addition to their terrorist activities causing cable disruptions due to repeated attacks on ships in Yemeni territorial waters.”
“What is happening today in the Red Sea should serve as a wake-up call for the international community, which must take a firm stance to stop these escalating threats and protect the digital infrastructure that serves as the lifeline of the modern world,” al-Eryani declared.
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