Ships loiter near subsea cables amid Iran's warnings to Trump

Several tanker ships linked to Iran have been loitering over subsea Internet cables in the Gulf of Oman near the Strait of Hormuz—a possible indication that the Iranian government is preparing to attack such undersea infrastructure in response to any renewed US and Israeli strikes.

The movements of three sanctioned tankers and an Iranian fishing boat have been tracked near major undersea cables by the maritime intelligence firm Windward in October, according to the Financial Times. Six active cables currently cross through the contested Strait of Hormuz, linking the Middle East to Europe, Africa and Asia, with two more cables having segments under construction in the region.

Four countries, including Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, depend entirely upon such subsea telecommunications connections running through the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint to link with the outside world. But other countries also depend heavily on the region’s undersea cable network—one third of India’s westbound Internet traffic goes through the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

One cable under construction, the 2Africa cable, is owned by a tech consortium that includes the US company Meta. That was one of the major cable corridors visited by the drifting Iran-linked ships.

Windward used both ship-tracking data and satellite images to track the vessels as they slowed down and looped around near multiple cables, with some ships then “going dark” by switching off their automatic identification system (AIS) transponders that normally broadcast their location and other information.

Such movement and behavioral patterns suggest the Iran-linked ships may be “mapping the cable routes, or placing charges or mines on them while dark,” Windward told the Financial Times.

Windward highlighted the examples of two sanctioned tankers linked to Iran that spent days drifting “directly over regional cable corridors… both with no commercial reason to stop” in a blog post on October 26. Both ships carried no commercial cargo.