Ships did not cause Internet cable damage

[Donk Yore]

Source: AFP

CAIRO - Damage to undersea Internet cables in the Mediterranean that hit business across the Middle East and South Asia was not caused by ships, Egypt’s communications ministry said on Sunday, ruling out earlier reports.

The transport ministry added that footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.

‘The ministry’s maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area,’ a statement said.

‘The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships,’ the statement added.

(a little more)

Read more: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2008/February/theworld_February77.xml§ion=theworld&col

[boricua79]

1. so what the hell happened? NT

[ursi]

63. did it have something to do with the opening of Iran's oil bourse this week?

which is rumored to harm the US dollar?

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=37468§ionid=351020103

And this from the Energy Bulletin:


EB reader BB writes:
Iran was scheduled to inaugurate its Oil Bourse this coming week.

That probably isn't going to happen because all internet access in Iran was cut over the weekend (the undersea cables were chopped). This was mentioned on Wikipedia for a day... but now the article links and coverage have disappeared.

Iran is in total internet blackout at the moment. Any further information is appreciated.


http://www.energybulletin.net/39844.html

[DBoon]

64. One of the opening shots in WWI

Was the Brits severing Germany's only undersea cable for telegraph traffic.

[ursi]

65. gee, could the Bush admin be that desperate??

[robinlynne]

94. interesting.

[lala_rawraw]

71. you nailed it!

[boricua79]

80. maybe...but then again...

when it's back up, the oil bourse will be opened, so that's not effective destruction of their plan.

Is it just "we can fuck with you" messages to the Iranian government?

They have their own form of those messages...it's called our soldiers being blown up in Iraq.

[Demeter]

Frogmen, Then? Great White Sharks? Crocodiles?

Metal scavengers? Teenage punks? Bueller? Anyone?


9/11! 9/11! 9/11!


Maybe it's an advertising trick for the next season's sitcoms....

[tanyev]

33. Trained dolphins?

:cry:

[boricua79]

81. Sharks with lasers on their head?

Just trying to help in the detective process. :sarcasm:

[iris5426]

90. I know this is not a laughing matter, but that got me...

:rofl:

[sentelle]

91. actually....

We couldn't get sharks... endangered and all....

carp with lasers on their heads.....

[jaksavage]

86. We have the most advanced

cable splicing submarines in the world.
We tap communications cables regularly.
Just as easy to chop it in two.

[HughMoran]

2. Sounds shady

I wonder if it was sabotage?

[mihalevich]

3. what countries were effected by this again?

[gateley]

6. Egypt, Dubai and NOW Qatar. nt

[mihalevich]

9. Generally pro Western middle east countries?

Is SA effected?

[Pavulon]

10. List of nations friendly to the US...

just sayin..We run large operation centers in the last two..Maybe we are the target??

[AlienGirl]

27. Maybe the target is the friendliness between those nations and the US

A message from someone not to be too friendly with the US and the liberal West; that someone who disapproves of the relationship can cut the connection any time they want?

Tucker

[HughMoran]

11. I heard on NPR that nearly half of India's bandwidth was lost

That was a major issue for commerce...

[raebrek]

93. Probably intereupt their ability to use VOIP for tech support calls two :) n\t

[CJCRANE]

82. I think there are more countries

affected - Africa only has two cables AFAIK - one into Egypt and one into South Africa - but the number of email/internet users in Africa is tiny compared to the rest of the world so they are probably ignored by the MSM.

[Donk Yore]

13. a link

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/2008/02/01/141427/Fallout-over.htm

Syria is also affected

[lurky]

16. You're linking to STORMFRONT?!?!?

[Donk Yore]

18. I deleted it

when I saw what it was. I had done a search for news on affected countries. I got rid of it the minute I realized where it was from. Sorry!

[aquart]

21. What a surprise.

[Donk Yore]

23. I deleted it

before it was pointed out to me by the previous poster. I had done a search, and picked a couple of links with info. Again, sorry about that one link.

[jwirr]

37. Curious: What is Stormfront?

[lurky]

39. Neo-Nazi / White supremacist site. n/t

[jwirr]

47. Thank you. That is one site I want to stay away from.

[LostinVA]

98. I'm not surprised by the StormFront link

[Donk Yore]

117. I was

I had never even heard of it before. I was in a hurry to post info, and didn't check closely enough at first glance where it came from. As I noted, I rechecked the source immediately after posting and deleted it. I haven't been back to the site, and hope no one else ever goes to it either. It's hard to believe there are places like that. It came up as first on a search for countries affected by cut cables. damn.

[dysfunctional press]

116. only two countries were NOT affected- israel and iraq.

hmmmmm...

[gateley]

4. A FOURTH cable was destroyed, too? Yikes -- that's a little too many for

coincidence, don't you think?

Did Dubai ever issue a statement as to what caused their cable damage?

[Joanne98]

38. link?

[Robb]

40. Internet problems continue with fourth cable break

Internet problems continue with fourth cable break

Internet services in Qatar have been seriously disrupted because of damage to an undersea telecoms cable linking the Gulf state to the UAE, the fourth such incident in less than a week.

Qatar Telecom (Qtel) said on Sunday the cable was damaged between the Qatari island of Haloul and the UAE island of Das on Friday.

The cause of damage is not yet known, but ArabianBusiness.com has been told unofficially the problem is related to the power system and not the result of a ship's anchor cutting the cable, as is thought to be the case in the other three incidents.

(more)

[DJ13]

5. Does Israel own any subs?

Just sayin.......

[Viva_La_Revolution]

14. my first thoughts too...

strange timing..
Witnesses: Egypt Closes Border With Gaza
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jDyseLb5oJx-w1ZPUDAsq-l_f_OQD8UIM5A00

:shrug:

[Pavulon]

24. Why would the evil Israelis

cut internet service to nations friendly to the US. Egypt for example receives billions in us aid and operates us equipment as its main battle tank and in its air force.

Dubai and Qatar are host to major us operations. Including theater CIC.

Internet is a civilian tool. Not used by military operations. Even Iran, a third world nation, can conduct regional operations without the internet.

[sce56]

56. Why would that stop them just ask the survivors of the USS Liberty

http://www.gtr5.com/ http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-l/agtr5.htm
On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas in international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. This USS Liberty Memorial web site tells their story and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died.

The Attack


After surveilling USS Liberty for more than nine hours with almost hourly aircraft over flights and radar tracking, the air and naval forces of Israel attacked our ship in international waters without warning. USS Liberty was identified as a US naval ship nine hours before the attack by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft and continuously tracked by Israeli radar and aircraft thereafter. Sailing in international waters at less than five knots, with no offensive armament, our ship was not a military threat to anyone.

The Israeli forces attacked without warning and without attempting to contact us. Thirty four Americans were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded. The ship, a $40 Million Dollar state of the art signals intelligence platform, was later declared unsalvageable and sold for scrap.


The Cover Up


Despite a near-uniform consensus that the Israeli attack was made with full knowledge that USS Liberty was a US Navy ship, the Johnson administration began an immediate cover-up of this fact. Though individual administration officers continued individually to characterize the attack as deliberate, the Johnson administration never sought the prosecution of the guilty parties or otherwise attempted to seek justice for the victims. They concealed and altered evidence in their effort to downplay the attack. Though they never formally accepted the Israeli explanation that it was an accident, they never pressed for a full investigation either. They simply allowed those responsible literally to get away with murder.




"I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. . . . Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous "

-- US Secretary of State Dean Rusk

"...the board of inquiry (concluded) that the Israelis knew exactly what they were doing in attacking the Liberty."

-- CIA Director Richard Helms

"I can tell you for an absolute certainty (from intercepted communications) that the Israelis knew they were attacking an American ship."

-- NSA Deputy Director Oliver Kirby

"That the Liberty could have been mistaken for the Egyptian supply ship El Quseir is unbelievable"

-- Special Assistant to the President Clark Clifford, in his report to President Lyndon Johnson

"The highest officials of the administration, including the President, believed it 'inconceivable' that Israel's 'skilled' defense forces could have committed such a gross error."

-- Lyndon Johnson's biographer Robert Dallek in Flawed Giant, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 430-31)

"The evidence was clear. Both Admiral Kidd and I believed with certainty that this attack...was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.... It was our shared belief. . .that the attack. . .could not possibly have been an accident.... I am certain that the Israeli pilots their superiors. . .were well aware that the ship was American."

-- Captain Ward Boston, JAGC, US Navy (retired), senior legal counsel to the US Navy Court of Inquiry

That the attack was deliberate "just wasn't a disputed issue" within the National Security Agency

-- Former NSA Director retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom on 3 March 2003 in an interview for Naval Institute Proceedings

[IsItJustMe]

59. Wow. Never knew this. Do you have any idea of what their motivation was?

[sce56]

68. I have heard they tried to blame it on the Egyptians to bring the US in on their side

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,66005.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout
chicagotribune.com
TRIBUNE SPECIAL REPORT: THE STRIKE ON THE USS LIBERTY

Additional material published Dec 2
New revelations in attack on American spy ship
Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly '67 incident

By John Crewdson

Tribune senior correspondent

October 2, 2007

Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.

"I'm angry! I'm seething with anger! Forty years, and I'm seething with anger!"

Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War.

For Lockwood and many other survivors, the anger is mixed with incredulity: that Israel would attack an important ally, then attribute the attack to a case of mistaken identity by Israeli pilots who had confused the U.S. Navy's most distinctive ship with an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport that was half its size and had a dissimilar profile. And they're also incredulous that, for years, their own government would reject their calls for a thorough investigation.

"They tried to lie their way out of it!" Lockwood shouts. "I don't believe that for a minute! You just don't shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!"

Four decades later, many of the more than two dozen Liberty survivors located and interviewed by the Tribune cannot talk about the attack without shouting or weeping.

Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency's position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots -- communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.

The documents also suggest that the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel's reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation.

In declassifying the most recent and largest batch of materials last June 8, the 40th anniversary of the attack, the NSA, this country's chief U.S. electronic-intelligence-gatherer and code-breaker, acknowledged that the attack had "become the center of considerable controversy and debate." It was not the agency's intention, it said, "to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material," available at http://www.nsa.gov/liberty .

[IsItJustMe]

107. Thanks. I swear, the longer I live, the more cynical I become. That story blew my mind.

[Elidor]

96. The Israeli soldiers were massacring Egyptian POWs in the town of El Arish

The Liberty, being a SIGINT ship, was very capable of picking up evidence of these war crimes. Egyptian POWs, hands tied behind their backs, were lined up against a wall and machine-gunned. Many of them were forced to dig their own graves before being killed. The Liberty could have caused a lot of trouble for the Israelis, who had also killed UN troops during the war, so they attempted to destroy the ship and everyone onboard.

And our government helped the Israelis cover the whole thing up.

My source for this is James Bamford's Body of Secrets, pgs. 201-202.

[Pavulon]

66. So hiroshima is still on the table for the US...

the whole blame the zionists and us for every bit of misfortune in the mideast is pretty sad.

I am well aware of this incident and its popularity in topics about israel.

[sce56]

74. Ok well I'll play that game

Who pulled off a coup against the democratically elected goverment of Iran in 1953? The CIA! they installed the Shaw who ruled over a bloody dictatorship until his overthrow due to the Islamic uprising by the Ayatollah Kommenii. I'm sure you liked the outcome of that one. Who supported Saddam Hussein in fact helped him pull a coup against his predecessors? the CIA! Who supported Marcos in the Philippines? Somoza in Nicuragua? and also in Panama and Guatemala where just recently 80,000,000 files documenting the abuse and interrogation of prisoner was just found in an investigation some of the files had skin patches of the prisoners stapled to them.

The fact is that for four cables suddenly were cut two at the same time a coincidence but three then four cables the odds against that are staggering that that could have been a coincidence is ludicrous!

[Megahurtz]

105. Because that's just what they are. n/t

[aquart]

19. Yeah, that would be your first thought.

Not that it really qualifies as thinking.

Let me know when you can come up with a reason for it, aside from the evil Jews just like that sort of thing.

[ohio2007]

60. Iran owns subs and north Korean semi submersables

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=808_1195920265
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3ea_1201004168

[Lasher]

78. Persian Gulf nations that have subs

Israel, Egypt and Iran. They're all diesel boats.

http://www.hazegray.org/worldnav/

[ChairmanAgnostic]

83. they do, and they are superb

small, very quiet, and I believe one can launch missiles.

[Pavulon]

7. Scuba gear check, shaped charge check

the short list of what is required to cut a cable.

Does not require a nuclear sub.

[CK_John]

8. Gaza border breach was closed today, they got the message. n/t

[aquart]

22. Who is "they"?

And could you share your little "message" with the rest of us? We wouldn't want to miss any innuendo.

[TheWatcher]

103. And we certainly wouldn't want to miss any of your childish responses.

[Megahurtz]

106. Maybe some relatives of yours?

:)

[LiberalFighter]

12. How would ships damage the cables in that area?

How deep is the area where the damage was done?

[mihalevich]

17. countries

In all, users in India, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain were affected. Israel was unaffected by the outages because its Internet traffic is connected to Europe through a different undersea cable, and Lebanon and Iraq were also operating normally.


http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/2008/02/01/141427/Fallout-over.htm

[LiberalFighter]

28. How did that answer either of my questions?

[TomInTib]

20. Dragging anchor.

That was the original "explanation".

We must have that area pasted down tight, surveillance-wise.

This thing smells really bad.

[PSPS]

15. Gee, I wonder who would want to interrupt information coming out of that area?

That reminds me, whatever happened to that missing nuke last year?

[Pavulon]

26. Probably not the people who TAP all of it..

That would be us. Why would we knock out civilian internet to friendly nations.

Slowing down and looking at this from some position other than the us is responsible for all ills would be advisable.

Maybe we used that nuke to cause a tsunami..

[Richard D]

25. One cable and accident . . .

. . . two cables, strange coincidence.
But 4 cables in a few days???? All in the same region????
Oh oh.

[bigbrother05]

29. Dick Cheney

[alfredo]

30. Mini subs or spiteful Clown Fish.

[FarCenter]

31. What technical skills are required to locate undersea cables?

In shallow water these are usually plowed into the seabed. They are not just laying on the surface.

Who knows how to locate and sabotage the cables?

[mihalevich]

32. IRAN

[FarCenter]

34. Iran lost essentially all Internet service

Why would Iran cut off its own service by cutting cables?

If they wanted to, Iran could cut off service on shore without disrupting other countries. Formerly, the AT&T international operators would be the first to know about coups in Latin America, when the operators there were ordered to remove the circuits from service.

Besides, it's unlikely that they have the expertise and resources to do so.

Plus, a high-ranking Iranian was on a visit to Egypt at the time.

[mihalevich]

35. True, but

did Iran lose it's service?

[Lone_Star_Dem]

48. From the post you replied to

"Iran lost essentially all Internet service"

At this point Iran has now completely lost Internet connectivity.

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

[onenote]

120. You don't know what you're talking about do you

If your link is supposed to prove that "Iran has now completely lost Internet connectivity" than I guess Florida has also suffered the same fate.
http://www.internettrafficreport.com/namerica.htm



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2815976

[ohio2007]

58. Iran has been bragging about what their special forces can do.

Who's to say they won't unleash them internally ?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=4b3_1197317850

purges of the unclean
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6196069.stm

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7e5_1201722685

[Ichingcarpenter]

36. Many of these countries were cut off from International Banking

Interesting Take from a Russian site

The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers
being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.

[Demeter]

41. Now That's Rather Significant

[Karenina]

44. Two words: IRAN BOURSE. eom

[Marie26]

104. Aren't we wiretapping SWIFT?

Or something? I have a vague memory of a story about this - Bush ordering the NSA to eavesdrop on SWIFT transactions.

[Baby Snooks]

42. Probably the CIA

More than likely at some point when the CIA manages to completely disrupt internet service in the Middle East we will be told of CIA intelligence linking the disruption to al Queda and of course linking al Queda to the government of Iran.

And still the Empress sits. Serving her Emperor. Keeping impeachment off the table.

Few believe that Bush will not plunge us into war with Iran before the election. Part of the agenda. The way 9/11 was part of the agenda.

[Pavulon]

70. Umm Yeah, we TAP this shit

and listen in. That is what we have been doing for decades. The CIA has no interest in cutting off its source for signal intelligence.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

43. Sharks, a new mutant variety of sharks with a taste for cable wire

:eyes:

That makes as much sense as four "coincidental" breaks in less than a week.

[Thor_MN]

62. Sharks with fricking lasers on their foreheads.

Or mutant Sea Bass.

[robinlynne]

95. funny.

[ursi]

45. this whole event stinks to high heaven! or low sea floors!

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. hmmm... curious

I wonder who exactly has the assets to do this?


:tinfoilhat:

Yep, it fits... and it feels snug

[pleah]

49. Godless Warmongering Bastard and the New Word Nazis want all communications

down for when they bomb Iran. Or maybe they have something else up their sleeve. This is not a coincidence.

[Pavulon]

67. We have that down to a science

you dont cripple air defenses in a country by removing their ability to download porn.

Internet is out in many countries friendly to the US and countries we use as military posts.

[ohio2007]

97. Hey, let him go, he's on a roll ....

Did we sit back after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor ?
;)

or whatever it was senator Blutarski said.


internet cables have been cut..traffic has been rerouted....and the element of suprise is sliping away....

the June invasion is two ...no ...three years past due

[Teaser]

50. Godzilla

.

[KoKo]

51. Can't trust any Media...Can't Trust Gov't Reports...Can't Trust...Can't Trust...

WHATEVER.......

[NoodleyAppendage]

52. Testing the ability to disrupt communications before the coming Iran Bombing Campaign

Advance force ops to determine where to strike when the Iran Bombing starts. Bank on it.

J

[mdmc]

53. kick

[ohio2007]

57. or an Iranian internal purge to cast off the satanic information age and return to the dark ages

the Iranians have an election comming up next month. Many have already been banned from running for reasons only known to the mullahs.

[IsItJustMe]

61. I can see it now. Did I cut the right cable? [reply] No! Damn it! The other one.

[Pavulon]

69. Just like we did in Iraq,,Oh wait no

that makes no sense. We have a plan for Iran. These plans range from selective bombing to strategic bombing to killing every man woman and child in a thermonuclear attack. They have been in a continual state of readiness for over 30 YEARS.

Cutting off internet access is counter productive to us. The internet is access to western media. Burma cut off outside access before it went nuts and killed people to try to hide the fact they were doing it.

We have been running ops in iran for DECADES, we have people there now. Bank on it.

We tap communications, not blow them up.

[NoodleyAppendage]

72. "Bank on it" was a pun, referring to the disruption of financial transfers prior to bombing.

Tapping communications, I have no doubt. But, I equally have no doubt that disrupting the financial transactions between Iran and Russia and associated "friendlies" will be important to prevent an influx of support monies.

J

[kelligesq]

89. Same thought - looking for

cables which will cause blackout of news to the West when the madman starts his
third war.

[ohio2007]

54. a possible 4rth cable cut. ( Iranians denied access to the outside ? but by whom ? )

Fourth undersea cable cut in Mideast; Authorities readying "damage from ship anchor" excuse

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3373851&ok=1


http://www.internettrafficreport.com/history/267.htm

Two things

1. US military and/or intelligence trying to cut Iran off from the outside world in prep for some kind of something.

2. Fanatical elements inside Iran trying to cut them off from the corrupting influence of the Internet.


oh
and
a little something for the tin foil conspiracy type to sink their teeth into from an article dated

Monday September 10, 2001



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4253580,00.html



just feeding the paranoia crowd ;)

another dated article.
Friday, February 18, 2005 Posted: 9:01 PM EST (0201 GMT)
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:3fK6ZB19WjIJ:msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/cnn/2005-02-18_cnn_optical_taps.pdf+fiber+submarine+cia&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us&client=opera


run, hide.
think happy place
think happy place..... LOL

[treestar]

55. Those tubes are vulnerable

Who knew?

[Xithras]

73. The answer will be apparent once they can actually see the break.

If it's a dragged anchor, it will be apparent by the type of break. If it's sea life, the chewing will be obvious (joking aside, some sea life is attracted to the chemicals and current in undersea cables. If it was cut or bombed, that will be obvious too.

Another thing not mentioned here is simply a shift in the seabed. If that area is watched by cameras, it's obviously close to shore. Contrary to the post above, undersea cables are usually only trenched very near the shore. Even in shallow seas the cables aren't trenched if there are no shorelines in the immediate vicinity. Trenching is only done to prevent human tampering, and that's usually only a concern within a few hundred feet of the shore.

If the sea is shallow there and all the breaks happened in the same area, it's possible that ocean currents simply shifted the sand or silt on the seafloor enough to break the cables. Those cables are quite stiff, and if a seafloor shift left a section of them unsupported they may have simply snapped under their own weight. These types of snaps aren't unheard of, though four snaps in such a short period of time is very odd.

As for the conspiracy theories, here's another for you: Submarine crews have trained to break cables for decades. During the cold war it was well known that sub crews on both sides were trained to drag hooks along the bottom of the sea to snag and snap undersea communication cables to disrupt enemy communications. Egypt has subs, we have subs, Iran has subs, Israel has subs, Libya has subs, Algeria has subs, all of the large Med-facing European nations have subs...there are quite a few nations in the area with the ability to pull something like this off. The question is, what do they gain? Military telecom still relies mostly on sats and radio, so the hit is more economic than strategic, and NONE of the nations in that region have any substantial telecom or Internet based economic sectors. If Pakistan or India were being hit it might plausibly be a strike at their huge telecom based services industries, but those don't exist in Quatar or Egypt.

[Dumak]

75. If someone intentionally broke the cable, why would they not try to make it look unintentional?

[Sandy2k]

76. Internet cable damage

Is this a prelude to a war?

[Sandy2k]

77. Ships did not cause Internet cable damage

Hopefully this will slow outsorcing to India.

[pinniped]

79. Blame "al-Qaeda in the Mediterranean" for this one.

.

[Javaman]

84. Iran oil bourse scheduled

It was done on purpose...

Iran oil bourse scheduled
by Staff

EB reader BB writes:
Iran was scheduled to inaugurate its Oil Bourse this coming week.

That probably isn't going to happen because all internet access in Iran was cut over the weekend (the undersea cables were chopped). This was mentioned on Wikipedia for a day... but now the article links and coverage have disappeared.

Iran is in total internet blackout at the moment. Any further information is appreciated.

http://www.energybulletin.net/39844.html

[buckrogers1965]

85. The rule of thumb.

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."
~~Ian Fleming

[LeftHander]

87. Probably a sub....

I am sure that communication lines can be cut from a submarine operation...and they are planned and tactical.

[Donk Yore]

88. times 4

subs

[Pavulon]

110. All you need is scuba gear

you can cut cable, i beams, or whatever with a shaped charge. Now if you want to tap a cable.. that may require a sub. We tend to do the latter.

EDIT:Clarity

[sarcasmo]

92. Iran attack will happen before Bush leaves office.

Whether it be started by Israel or by the U.S.A.
If it happens I hope you all have a plan, because things will get ugly and ugly fast.

[ohio2007]

100. you taking bets wolf man ?

heard this invasion/bomb Iran talk for almost four years now.

[sarcasmo]

101. What are we betting? I am not far from Ohio by the way, LOL.

If it happens before the boy King leaves office, I will tick off the Veggies and bet you a Steak dinner.

[TrogL]

99. Anybody seen Cloverfield?

One of those babies coming out the depths is bound to snap a few cables like they were spiderwebs.

[eppur_se_muova]

102. Possibly connected to recent earthquake in Rift Valley region ??

Perhaps the seabed has been shifting or outgassing recently?

[gerrilea]

108. It's an act of War against Iran! Step #1

Anyone who can't see this needs to get some stronger glasses...not trying to insult anyone here...Step #1 in any war...disrupt communications!

*ush will start WWIII before he's out...this way he can suspend the constitution for whatever it's worth now and declare marshall law and the cancel any elections...I've said this now for 6 years...he won't leave office...

[Pavulon]

109. Internet....Porn and youtube watch out!

the internet is not "communications" militaries, even 3rd world soviet era models like Iran do not use the internet to conduct operations.

"I am IMing you the plan now..." umm no.

Oppressive governments disable communications to hide something.

I disagree with the basic premise of your post BTW. Bush is out. This is not Caracas, no presidente for life.

[gerrilea]

111. I will do some research...but I suspect the majority of communications

Currently throughout the world is done through or by the same cables that were cut...

Not only internet services, but phones...excluding SAT phones...

So...cutting those lines are the first step...

If we invaded Iran or attacked them...how would we know???

The first line of mass communications...must be cut or disrupted...


As for this not being Caracas...how foolish you are...with the MCA and The Patriot Act...the president now has the legal authority to suspend the constitution and declare martial law...this is absolutely not Caracas but the old Soviet Union or Nazi Germany...

But I do wish you well on your "beliefs"...I'm not that foolish anymore...

[gerrilea]

112. Here's an Article from Dr. Richard Sauder, PhD

Maybe this will help shape this discussion here....


Thanks,
Gerri


Middle East Undersea
Cable Cutting A Zionist-NeoCon
Covert Operation?
By Dr. Richard Sauder, PhD
2-2-8


In the Middle East in the last three days, there have been several undersea, international communications cables that have been cut. On Wednesday, 30 January 2008, two major, undersea communications cables were cut off the Egyptian coast, in the eastern Mediterranean. (1) The story has received prominent play in the international news cycle. Various explanations have been floated in the mainstream news media as to the cause - the most popular culprit being a "ship anchor". In any event, communications in the region have been severely disrupted, all the way from Egypt to India, and most points in between.

Then on Friday, 1 February 2008, an undersea cable in the Persian Gulf, running between Oman and Dubai, was also cut "causing severe phone line disruptions and compounding an already existing Internet outage across large parts of the Middle East and Asia" according to the International Herald Tribune. (2)

There was also a report on Friday, 1 February 2008, of yet another undersea, fiber optic communications cable between Suez and Sri Lanka that has been cut. The reporting is a bit confused; however, given that the Persian Gulf is geographically distant from the Suez, this appears to represent a fourth undersea cable that has been cut. (3)

So let's see if we can figure this story out. I will say up front that I am well and thoroughly skeptical of the "ship anchor" explanation that has been so prominently advanced in the mainstream news media. Yes, ships do sometimes drag their anchors and dragging anchors can cause damage, true enough. But to have three undersea cables -- or is it actually four cables? -- cut in the same region in just a two day span, strains credulity; the more so, when we look at how the damage has played out across the region.

Two countries in particular stand at conspicuously opposite ends of the continuum of communications disruption.

1. The website, internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm, reports that as of Friday, 1 February 2008, internet traffic routing through/from/to Iran has been cut to zero. Packet loss is 100%. (4)

2. Whereas CNN reported on Thursday, 31 January 2008, that internet traffic to Israel has been unaffected because Israel uses a "different route". The same CNN article also reports that Lebanon and Iraq have been "spared the chaos". (5)

So, the sudden, unprecedented round of undersea, communications cable cutting in the Middle East leaves Israel and Iraq still connected, while completely shutting down the Iranian internet.

Funny how that works, isn't it?

As it happens, the two actors in the international arena in recent years whose rhetoric has expressed the most animus for Iran are the United States and Israel. They have also been by far the most bellicose, Zionist-NeoCon propaganda notwithstanding. Israel and the United States have repeatedly committed military aggression against other countries in the region, and have made many thinly veiled threats of war against Iran. In this decade, the United States has militarily invaded and occupied first Afghanistan, then Iraq, where its forces remain, bogged down in bloody wars of attrition. In the same period, Israel has bombed Syria, bombed and invaded Lebanon, and placed the Palestinian territories under a merciless blockade/occupation/assault. Parallel with these international war crimes, the United States and Israel have repeatedly rattled their sabres against Iran.

Which brings the discussion back around to the instant spate of undersea, communications cable cutting in the region that has uniquely brought Iranian internet communications to a complete halt, while sparing Israel, which has a different internet route than any of the cut cables, and Iraq, where the American military occupation is bogged down.

As it happens, the U.S. Navy has for decades had special operations teams that go out on submarines and deploy undersea, on the seabed itself, specifically for cutting or tapping communications cables. The U.S. Navy divers go out through special airlocks and use very sophisticated equipment. This has all been thoroughly documented in the excellent book, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage, by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew (New York: Public Affairs, 1998).


For the uninitiated it seems bizarre and unlikely, but the plain fact of the matter is that American military divers really go out onto the seabed from special submarines outfitted with airlocks and they actually cut undersea communications cables-- then patch in sophisticated surveillance equipment -- then they splice the cables back together. That is if the motive is espionage. If the purpose of the operation is garden variety sabotage, then simply cutting the cable suffices. It's like something out of a spy novel thriller, but the U.S. Navy really does have submarines and deep diving, special operations personnel who specialize in precisely this sort of operation. So cutting a few undersea cables in two or three days is well within the operational capabilities of the United States Navy.
Couple this little known, but very important fact, with the reality that for years now we have seen more and more ham-handed interference with the global communications grid by the American alphabet soup (NSA, CIA, FBI, HoSec) and major tel-comms. Would the tel-comms and the American military and alphabet soup agencies collude on an operation that had as its aim to sabotage the Iranian communications network, even if that entailed collateral damage to other countries in the region? The honest answer has to be: sure, maybe so. Who can really tell? I mean, after all, we are living in a bizarro world now, a world of big and bigger lies, a world of 24/7 propaganda, a world of irrational and violent policies enacted against the civilian population by multinational corporations and military and espionage agencies the world over. We see the evidence for this on every hand. Only the most myopic among us remain oblivious to these realities.
In light of the American Navy's demonstrated sea-floor capabilities and espionage activities, the heavy American Navy presence in the region, and the many veiled threats against Iran by both the Americans and the Israelis, suspicion naturally falls on them both. It may be that this is what the beginning of a war against Iran looks like. Or maybe we are merely seeing a dry run, a practice run, for a planned, upcoming war against Iran. The cables that have been cut are among the largest communication pipes in the region, and clearly represent major strategic targets.

Whatever the case, it is crystal clear that we are not looking at business as usual. On the contrary, we are looking at distinctly unusual business, that much is obvious.

The explanations being put forth in the mainstream news media for these several cut, undersea communications cables absolutely do not pass the smell test. And by the way, the same operators who cut undersea cables in the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean Sea and possibly the Suez as well, presumably can also cut underwater cables in the Gulf of Mexico or Great Lakes or ... you see my point. This could be a multipurpose operation, in part a test run for isolating a country from the international communications grid. Iran today, the USA tomorrow?

What's that you say? I don't understand how the world works? That kind of thing can't happen here?

In any event, if the cables have been intentionally cut, then that is an aggressive act of war. I'm sure the Iranians have gotten that message, and are actively making counter preparations against a possible imminent attack. I'm looking at the same telegram as they are, and I know I would be, were I in their shoes.


References

(1) http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL3026621820080130?sp=true

(2) http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/02/africa/ME-GEN-Mideast-Internet-Outages.php

(3) http://www.smartmoney.com/news/on/index.cfm?story=ON-20080201-000320-0524

(4) http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

(5) http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/

Richard Sauder lives and works in San Antonio, Texas. He can be contacted at [e-mail]

[onenote]

119. proving that having a ph.d doesn't make you smart

the claim that Internet service to iran has been "completely" shut down has been debunked several times.

[WheelWalker]

113. We're going into Pakistan... n/t

[WheelWalker]

114. Israel is going into Iran....n/t

[WheelWalker]

115. DU is going into convulsions....n/t

[Phx_Dem]

118. Digital World: The underwater cable libel

Who stands to benefit? That's the latest pseudo-scientific/sociological/political watchword when anti-Semites seek to blame Israel for modern tragedies.

What about 9/11? Of course it was "the Jews" - who else stood to benefit from making al-Qaida look bad? The hijackers were Saudis, you say? Irrelevant - leave it to Israel to recruit authentic Arab double agents to hijack planes and fly them into American landmarks.

It seems there's nothing that can't be blamed on the Jews - whether its missing Christian children during the Middle Ages - in the classic take on the "Blood Libel" - or the massive Internet outage that hit the Arab world over the past week. Well, not just the Arabs - India has had a lot of Internet problems, and Iran may still be 100 percent without Internet access after several underwater, fiber-optic cables were damaged or cut.

The outages, which many in the Arab world and the far-Left, hate-Israel community are already blaming on you know who, began about a week ago. A pair of undersea communications cables between Egypt and Europe - the data "lifeline" for much of the Arab world - broke about 8 kilometers off Alexandria's harbor, which was closed most of the week due to the massive storm that hit the region. India, which also uses the FLAG Europe Asia and SEA-ME-WE 4 cables, was severely hampered, wreaking havoc with much of the world's back-office data-processing, and leaving frustrated Americans without the technical assistance that India does so well. Banks in the Gulf region were hurting, and officials said it could be a week, maybe two, until things get back to normal.

More at:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1202064583974&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull