Sabotage damage assessed
Underwater data cables in the Red Sea have reportedly been damaged, months after Yemen's Houthi rebels threatened to do so.
At least 15 submarine cables pass through Bab El -The Mandeb Strait in the southern part of the Red Sea, its width is only 26 km in some places.
The first reports of damage to submarine cables off the coast of Yemen began to emerge on Monday morning, when Israeli news outlet Globes stated that four cables (EIG, AAE-1, Seacom and TGN-EA) were damaged. Seacom has reportedly confirmed damage to the cable it operates between Kenya and Egypt.
“The location of the cable break is significant due to its geopolitical sensitivity and ongoing tensions, which creates a challenging environment for maintenance and repair operations,” Seacom said. “The team is currently working to establish a timeline for restoration and will communicate those plans.” our customers.» Globes attributed the outage to the Iran-backed Houthis and said the damage was «significant but not critical» because several other undersea cables serve the region. Seacom has already assured customers that it has redirected traffic to other cables.
Although there is a decent supply of cable repair vessels around the world, they have to be booked well in advance, so finding a vessel ready to work is not always possible. Repairing the cables is also not easy: It takes time to find and remove the damaged segment and reconnect it, The Register notes.
Regional tensions can complicate these repairs. The Houthis attacked civilian ships and military targets in the Red Sea after the Israeli Defense Forces invaded Gaza as retaliation for Hamas terrorist attacks, media recall.
Therefore, some shipping companies have decided that the risks of attacks on their assets are too high and are currently avoiding the Red Sea, which increases delivery times. Peripheral supplier Logitech recently warned that its supply chain would face delays as a result of the Red Sea conflict.
Internet monitoring company NetBlocks also reported on Monday that Internet access in Djibouti, an African country on the southern shore of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, was disrupted on Sunday and Monday. Members of the Internet outage mailing list also reported that they saw problems with cables running through the Red Sea, but messages on the list also dispute the timing of the incident, indicating that one of the cables mentioned in the outage report was EIG , was «offline for several weeks.»
Cloudflare, meanwhile, shows no signs of damage to the Red Sea submarine cable on its outages and anomalies page.
While it is unclear what exactly is happening with the Red Sea submarine internet cables right now, blame is being laid on the Houthis it is possible that Yemeni rebels threatened to damage the communications infrastructure in late 2023.
Whether the group was able to achieve this feat — the necessary underwater operations are considered to be the exclusive prerogative of large countries — is not clear.
Rear Admiral John Gower, a former Royal Navy submarine commander, told the BBC earlier this month that this would require a more sophisticated force than the Houthis, someone with underwater vehicles capable of detecting the cables.< /p>
«I think it's a bluff unless it's an attack on the terminal,» Gower said.
«I haven't seen anything in the Iranian [order of battle] that would concern these cables, and certainly their submarines,” former Royal Navy Commander Tom Sharp told the BBC. While diving would have been possible, Sharp said he agreed with Gower that the threat was likely a bluff.
Underwater infrastructure is often threatened during international conflicts. Just last week, the European Commission (EC) said that the security of submarine cables needs to be improved. The European Commission said submarine cables were vulnerable and valuable and asked EU countries to «give submarine cable infrastructure the status of the highest possible national importance.»