UN Agency: Saboteurs May Have Cut Four Mideast Telecom Cables

Five underwater cables were cut across the Middle East and Asia recently, and UN investigators think at least four of them could have been damaged deliberately. The damaged cables disrupted Internet and phone services in a number of countries.

These five cables were damaged in a relatively short period of time between late January and early February. At that time, many people speculated it was sabotage, as it was too much of a coincidence so many cables would fail on their own. After doing a preliminary investigation, the UN has concluded the same -- it must have been cut deliberately by saboteurs. The agency’s head of development, Sami al-Murshed told Associated Press: "We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago." The damaged cables disrupted phone and internet services in many countries (some of countries had no service for days). Many countries use back-ups fed by different cables, so services were restored in many countries. One of the cables (the Falcon cable between the United Arab Emirates and Oman) was damaged by a ship’s anchor according to India’s Flag telecom. But the other four cables don’t appear to have been damaged by a ship. Murshed said this at conference on cyber-crime held in Gulf state of Qatar: "Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships." The Falcon cable has been repaired along with the Flag Europe Asia (FEA) cable which was damaged off Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. The other cables are not entirely ready and repairs are ongoing. The investigation will be completed soon.