Overview
- Two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters that Tehran has drawn up detailed plans to target undersea communications cables in the Gulf if the United States or Israel attacks Iran.
- An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official said Iran could hit seven major cables beneath the Strait of Hormuz and one anonymous Iranian source said Tehran would try to prevent repairs to prolong outages.
- Undersea cables carry about 99% of global internet traffic but research shows less than 1% of international bandwidth passes through the Strait of Hormuz while the route carries a much larger share of regional traffic.
- Experts warn that repairs are technically possible but can be delayed by higher wartime insurance costs, denied access to territorial waters and slow permits, and Iran has already struck cloud and data facilities in the Gulf earlier this year.
- Policy proposals in response call for prearranged measures such as prefunding repair vessels, holding pretested spare fiber under joint control, and preclearing insurance and permits to shorten outages and reduce Iran's leverage while Gulf states and tech firms build more terrestrial redundancy.