Major Internet Disruption In The Middle East

Cnn

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- High-technology services across large tracts of Asia, the Middle East and North Africa were crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

Industry experts are blaming damage to two undersea cables but it is not known what caused the damage.

Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel -- whose traffic uses a different route -- and Lebanon and Iraq.

IHT

"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: A leading Internet provider in the Emirates said an undersea cable had been cut early Friday in the Persian Gulf, causing severe phone line disruptions here and compounding an already existing Internet outage across large parts of the Middle East and Asia after two other undersea cables were damaged earlier this week north of Egypt.

Smoking Mirrors

"Over the last several days four underground cables have been cut in the Middle East. You can read about it here . One was also cut that linked UAE and Oman so this gives us four cables. Guess what? Ships dragging anchors caused this in every case. At no time in the past did four major cables get cut at the same relative time by dragging ship’s anchors and now four have been cut just like that."

Guardian - September 10, 2001 - US pulls the plug on Muslim websites