Iran Openly Threatening the Hormuz Subsea Cables

Iranian officials spent October openly threatening the subsea internet cables under the Strait of Hormuz. On October 12, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Gulf cables, data centers, and artificial intelligence facilities could get hit if the US and Israel restart the war.1 A week later, Revolutionary Guard spokesman Hossein Mohebbi pointed out the seven major cables under the strait and said new targets were coming.2 On October 23, two senior security officials told Reuters that Iran has detailed plans to hit Gulf cables if it’s attacked again.3 Back in May, the talk was about charging the cables fees and requiring permits,4 so this is a clear escalation.

A Hormuz cut would mostly hurt the Gulf.5 However, less than 1 percent of international bandwidth passes through the strait,6 but Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar have no subsea cable route around it.7 Windward, the Maritime AI Company, caught sanctioned, Iran-linked tankers drifting and going dark (switching off their position broadcasts) over cable corridors in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea during the same weeks.8 Windward says that fits the profile of mapping the routes or planting charges or mines, but this is all educated guessing on their part.9

If Iran wanted to cause wider damage to internet infrastructure, it has better options. The cables along Oman’s Gulf of Oman coast link the Gulf to South Asia, Egypt, and Europe,10 and more systems run across the Arabian Sea.11 The Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb are cable chokepoints too,12 and the Red Sea could be an even bigger target than Hormuz with Houthi help, though Iran hasn’t threatened cables there.13 When three Red Sea cables were damaged in 2024, about a quarter of traffic between Asia, Europe, and the Middle East was disrupted.14 I doubt Iran wants that, though. An Iranian official told the Telegraph that Tehran discussed cutting a major cable running from Southeast Asia to Europe several times during the war. Tehran held off to avoid turning the whole world against it, though the official said that remains an option if Trump escalates.15 Iran’s Houthi proxies also collect rent from cable landing rights in Yemen,16 and Chinese carriers like China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom co-own several of these cables.17 Angering Beijing seems like a bad trade for Tehran.

Repairs are what make cables such a long term effective target. Local crews can patch a bombed runway in days. A cable break needs a specialized ship that has to sit still over the fault in a war zone,18 and it needs permission from every coastal state whose waters it crosses.19 Peacetime repairs usually take two to four weeks, but the 2024 Red Sea fixes took five to six months.20 Alcatel Submarine Networks, one of the world’s biggest repair operators, paused its regional work as of May,21 and one of the officials who talked to Reuters said Iran would try to block repairs to drag outages out.22

  1. Maryam Sinaiee, “Iran Hardliners Back Threats to Strike Persian Gulf Digital Infrastructure,” Iran International, October 12, 2026, https://www.iranintl.com/en/202610126090; Maya Romi, “Sanctioned Iran-Linked Tankers Went Dark over Gulf of Oman Cables as the IRGC Threatened Them,” Windward (blog), October 29, 2026, https://windward.ai/blog/sanctioned-iran-linked-tankers-went-dark-over-gulf-of-oman-cables/. ↩︎

  2. Tarek Chouiref, “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Cites 7 Internet Cables under Strait of Hormuz, Warns of ‘New Targets,’” Anadolu Agency, October 20, 2026, https://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/iran-s-revolutionary-guard-cites-7-internet-cables-under-strait-of-hormuz-warns-of-new-targets-/4094011; Akhtar Makoii, “Iran Threatens to Cut Hormuz Internet Cables,” Telegraph, October 20, 2026, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/20/iran-threatens-cut-hormuz-internet-cables/. ↩︎

  3. “Iran Has Detailed Plans to Hit Gulf Undersea Cables If War Resumes, Officials Say,” Reuters, October 23, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-has-detailed-plans-hit-gulf-undersea-cables-if-war-resumes-officials-say-2026-10-23/. ↩︎

  4. F. Hadid, “Iran Threatens Hormuz Cables That Vision 2030 Depends On,” House of Saud, October 20, 2026, https://houseofsaud.com/iran-cable-hormuz-vision2030/; Maya Romi, “Iran Threatens the Hormuz Internet Cables: Four Gulf States Have No Subsea Route That Avoids the Strait,” Windward (blog), October 26, 2026, https://windward.ai/blog/iran-threatens-the-hormuz-internet-cables/. ↩︎

  5. Gila Isaacson, “Iran Threatens to Cut Undersea Cables, Disconnect Global Internet,” JFeed, October 28, 2026, https://www.jfeed.com/middleeast/tnm2f0. ↩︎

  6. “Iran Has Detailed Plans.” ↩︎

  7. Romi, “Hormuz Internet Cables.” ↩︎

  8. Romi, “Tankers Went Dark”; Romi, “Hormuz Internet Cables.” ↩︎

  9. Romi, “Tankers Went Dark”; Romi, “Hormuz Internet Cables.” ↩︎

  10. Romi, “Tankers Went Dark.” ↩︎

  11. Romi, “Hormuz Internet Cables.” ↩︎

  12. Hadid, “Iran Threatens Hormuz Cables.” ↩︎

  13. “Iran Has Detailed Plans.” ↩︎

  14. Hadid, “Iran Threatens Hormuz Cables.” ↩︎

  15. Makoii, “Cut Hormuz Internet Cables.” ↩︎

  16. Anni Coonan, “Iran War Threatens Strait of Hormuz Subsea Internet Cables and Gulf AI Boom,” Legal 500, June 5, 2026, https://www.legal500.com/intelligence/global/media-telecoms-it-entertainment/iran-war-threatens-strait-of-hormuz-subsea-internet-cables-and-gulf-ai-boom. ↩︎

  17. Romi, “Tankers Went Dark”; Romi, “Hormuz Internet Cables.” ↩︎

  18. Isaacson, “Cut Undersea Cables.” ↩︎

  19. Hadid, “Iran Threatens Hormuz Cables.” ↩︎

  20. Hadid, “Iran Threatens Hormuz Cables”; Isaacson, “Cut Undersea Cables.” ↩︎

  21. Hadid, “Iran Threatens Hormuz Cables.” ↩︎

  22. “Iran Has Detailed Plans.” ↩︎

iran technology networking subsea-cables

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