Bad to Worse: Fifth Undersea Cable Cut in Middle East

reply to post by Pellevoisin


Has anyone been able to verify what countries do not have internet service besides Iran?

reply to post by Bayman


I have read that India has been struggling to cope because of these cable cuts. But I don't know of the other nations that is, to what degree they have been harmed. My youngest who works in Dubai sent me an article from a Arabic paper that claimed nine fiber optic cables had been cut in total. I have not seen that number acknowledged in any English-language source yet.

One thing I don't understand is how these cables can be cut in the deep ocean.

There is tons (literally) of pressure from the water column down there at the seabed in, say, the middle of the Atlantic.

One would think that a cable sturdy enough to withstand those types of pressures would be able to withstand an anchor dropping on it. I can see an anchor dragging it, but again the strengths required at those depths should hold if it's being pulled laterally too, no?

All I know is something is fishy about this ... dunno on who's part though.

reply to post by Fiverz


The "anchor" story doesn't wash though it is convenient. These cables through the Suez Canal, Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf have additional "armour" owing to experience in the Atlantic with cable breaks and because these waters are more shallow.

[edit on 6/2/08 by Pellevoisin]

I fail to see how shutting Iran's and the Middle East's Internet off from Europe and the rest of the world would help if America went to war with Iran. Anyone care to explain their reasoning if you disagree?

If anything, the Internet is going to help bring down the mullahs by helping the spread of information. We WANT our stuff getting in there, and we want the Iranian people to get their stuff out to the rest of the world.

When disrupting communications, you disrupt the enemies' ability to communicate with themselves, not with a continent 5000 miles away. They are still communicating amongst themselves.

reply to post by Pellevoisin


I've been visiting a few iranian (www.***.ir) websites. For example, their Information and Communicaiton Technology government website is up, as are every other media and government website I tried. I wouldn't be suprised if many private users have lost service, but the government and media seem to have a handle on their own bandwith. And considering those should be the top two targets of some sort of "information" attack, it's apparently not doing too good of a job.

I'm thinking that unless this is just "cutting the internet for the sake of seeing what happens", this is quite possibly a diversion.

I have read post and reply repeatedly on the cable breakings in the middle east. has anyone attempted to debunk Israel and Mossad? We all know that the US could provide cover for Israel and whatever deeds that they may be pursing.

Originally posted by Pellevoisin
The "anchor" story is just a flat out lie. These cables are virtually armoured, and one would have to cut through with great intention and some serious machinery. The CIA, MOSSAD, IDF, "KGB", Yakuza, ChiComs and others could easily do the job.

Ok, how? What depth are the cables at and can divers go that deep?

And if no ships were seen in the vicinity, these divers must have had to swim pretty far to make it to the bottom of the ocean and back to wherever they came from.

[edit on 6-2-2008 by Riposte]

reply to post by Riposte

Look at it as a psy-ops venture. Then you can investigate further the questions of who stands the most to gain.

Also, remember that Iran has their agents abroad just as the USA and Britain have their agents in Iran, for example. Cutting off those connexions is extremely interesting.

Also, considering the great area involved it is also possible that the US Department of Homeland Security could be behind such a cutting of cables if they thought it would keep Hamsa bin Laden and the other operatives disconnected from their fellows operating in North America and Europe.

There are many, many possibilities, but my money is on the USA's desire to simply rattle Iran's cage.

Originally posted by Esoterica
I've been visiting a few iranian (www.***.ir) websites. For example, their Information and Communicaiton Technology government website is up, as are every other media and government website I tried.

Yeah I've just dug a bit deeper also and found most media sites are up and not even mentioning this... make of it what you will, I'm back to passive. Here's a list of sources:
www.world-newspapers.com...

Originally posted by Riposte


Ok, how? What depth are the cables at and can divers go that deep?

And if no ships were seen in the vicinity, these divers must have had to swim pretty far to make it to the bottom of the ocean and back to wherever they came from.

[edit on 6-2-2008 by Riposte]

Try submarines and other submersible craft equipped with arms, torches, saws etc. That is far more likely what was employed or is being employed.

reply to post by Esoterica


I don't know how many but quite a few of these sites are hosted by companies outside of Iran.

I think the cable cuts are more of a message than anything else -- the proverbial shot across the bow.

If it is a diversion alone, then it is a different sort of psy-ops. I wonder if cutting these most modern cables helps western intelligence to better judge what other sources of communication are in play - both terrestrial and by satellite.

[edit on 6/2/08 by Pellevoisin]

Originally posted by Pellevoisin
Try submarines and other submersible craft equipped with arms, torches, saws etc. That is far more likely what was employed or is being employed.

I don't think submarines are equipped to launch submersible deep sea craft.

And as for psyops, you're going to have to explain who this targets and how that scores any psychological warfare points or whatever for the Israelis/Americans, because I still don't see how shutting off the Iranian people from the Western Internet in any way helps a future war with Iran.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot about what you said about trying to prevent al Qaeda operatives in the Mid East/Asia from communicating with their people in the West. I guess that is a plausible explanation, but still not much of a guarantee that it would work.

[edit on 6-2-2008 by Riposte]

USA most likely did it, cut off the daily Muslim Hackers from busting into the US mainframe. This will send a Message too the Chinese and there hacking Teams too stop messing around in the Pentagon or be CUT...off the internet......

I remembered something I read a long time ago, we are going through earth changes, what if expansion of the earth causing undersea cables to rupture ?

Red Sea is parting to create a new ocean

www.timesonline.co.uk...

A huge rift that appeared last year along a fault in the Afar desert in Ethiopia, where the African and Arabian tectonic plates meet, has provided the strongest indication yet of how the plates are separating to create a new sea.

The scientists used data from the Envisat satellite to show that an 8-metre rift developed along a 60km (37 mile) stretch of the fault in just three weeks.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Here is a picture

www.greatdreams.com...

Remember the Sumatra, Indonesia earthquake

This earthquake had the longest duration of faulting ever observed, between 8.3 and 10 minutes. It caused the entire planet to vibrate as much as 1 cm (0.5 inches)[1] and triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.

Notice the information on the rupture
en.wikipedia.org...

I believe in 2006 Dubia had an earthquake

www.jimmygrewal.com...

A recent such disruption was in December 2006, when an earthquake broke nine submarine cables between Taiwan and the Philippines, cutting connections between southeast Asia and the rest of the world.

www.deepikaglobal.com...

Is it possible that damage was done and something has happened recently to totally break apart the cables?

Normally changes to our geological environment take place almost imperceptibly. A life time is too short to see rivers changing course, mountains rising skywards or valleys opening up. In north-eastern Africa’s Afar Triangle, though, recent months have seen hundreds of crevices splitting the desert floor and the ground has slumped by as much as 100 meters (328 feet). At the same time, scientists have observed magma rising from deep below as it begins to form what will eventually become a basalt ocean floor. Geologically speaking, it won’t be long until the Red Sea floods the region. The ocean that will then be born will split Africa apart.

www.rebirth.co.za...

harowo.com...


[edit on 102929p://bWednesday2008 by Stormdancer777]

Originally posted by Riposte
I fail to see how shutting Iran's and the Middle East's Internet off from Europe and the rest of the world would help if America went to war with Iran. Anyone care to explain their reasoning if you disagree?

If anything, the Internet is going to help bring down the mullahs by helping the spread of information. We WANT our stuff getting in there, and we want the Iranian people to get their stuff out to the rest of the world.

When disrupting communications, you disrupt the enemies' ability to communicate with themselves, not with a continent 5000 miles away. They are still communicating amongst themselves.

Uhm... You obviously have no strategic background. If you want to cause serious problems without incurring the wrath of public opinion, then you disable the communications comming out of the country


Also, you cut off communications which are used to move money in different accounts.

there are literally 100's of reasons to cut communications outside of the country.

Originally posted by BallBreaker
USA most likely did it, cut off the daily Muslim Hackers from busting into the US mainframe. This will send a Message too the Chinese and there hacking Teams too stop messing around in the Pentagon or be CUT...off the internet......

Ugh... first off, we don't have muslims breaking into "mainframes"

Who are the top cyber terrorst states? Russia and China...

Originally posted by Riposte

And as for psyops, you're going to have to explain who this targets and how that scores any psychological warfare points or whatever for the Israelis/Americans, because I still don't see how shutting off the Iranian people from the Western Internet in any way helps a future war with Iran.

The psy-ops angle is pretty easy. "We can cut your links to the outside world any time we like." It rattles the cage, forces the Iranians among others to scramble resources to keep the infrastructure connected not to mention expending manpower and resources just trying to figure out what is going on. I'm sure US authorities would be pleased as punch if such actions provoked Iran into doing something stupid.

Cutting Iran off in a time of war could be advantageous to the USA so that it could engage in total warfare fairly assured that photos of dead children and screaming mothers aren't sent to the rest of the world via the internet. Cutting off blogs and local reports would likely be seen from the US military and intelligence communities' points of view as very advantageous for 'their cause' -- whatever that really is.

Cutting Iran off from their operatives worldwide during a time of war would impair any kind of retaliatory strikes via acts of terror.

Scientists report in the latest issue of the journal Nature that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate are slowly, but surely parting ways, thus stretching Earth's crust.

Arabian tectonic plate and African plate are moving away from each other
www.msnbc.msn.com...

oh 2006?

around the same time as the Dubia quake?
www.livescience.com...

For the past 30 million years Africa and Arabia have been going through a rifting process, the same one that formed the Red Sea. In this amount of time, the 186-mile- wide Afar depression formed.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

A satellite view of the Sinai shows two arms of the Red Sea spreading ridge, exposed on land.

www.seismo.unr.edu...

Check out these maps they are in the perfect location.
www.seismo.unr.edu...

[edit on 102929p://bWednesday2008 by Stormdancer777]

Originally posted by Esoterica
reply to post by Pellevoisin

 

I've been visiting a few iranian (www.***.ir) websites. For example, their Information and Communicaiton Technology government website is up, as are every other media and government website I tried.

If you look for information from people who seem to actually know what they're talking about, it appears a single major router went down and no cable was cut today.

It's easy to jump to conclusions (as I did and probably will) given the buildup in the gulf.