Four Vessels Tracked Near Routes of 7 Subsea Cable Systems off Oman
Key Facts
Three U.S.-sanctioned tankers and an Iranian-flagged fishing support vessel slowed, moved in loops, doubled back or stopped transmitting signals near subsea cable routes off Oman and Iran’s Makran coast between October 5 and 28, according to a Windward report published on October 29. The report described the vessels’ movements during that period but did not establish that they were preparing for sabotage. Windward said the pattern was consistent with the possibility of mapping cable routes or placing charges on them while signals were interrupted. The maritime activity came amid public Iranian threats against cables, but does not establish an operational link between the threats and the vessels’ movements. Available information did not show that the activity led to a market shift or raised risk premiums in energy and shipping.
Seven subsea cable systems pass through the routes where the tankers moved, according to Windward. They include 2Africa, Bay of Bengal Gateway, AAE-1, Oman Australia Cable, EIG, Transworld and SeaMeWe-4. The cables connect Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq with Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Europe, while the OAC cable extends to Australia. This reach makes the routes important for regional communications and links between Asia and Europe. The vessels moved near the routes of these systems, but the report did not cite any cable outages or service disruptions.
On October 23, a Reuters report said Iranian security officials had told it that Tehran had detailed plans to target Gulf cables if the United States and Israel attacked it again. On the same day, a large liquefied petroleum gas tanker slowed and doubled back along the 2Africa cable route, according to Windward’s timeline. Reuters quoted Yadollah Javani, the IRGC deputy for political affairs, as saying Iran could target 7 major internet cables under the Strait of Hormuz if Iranian infrastructure came under attack. One official also told Reuters that Iran would seek to prevent cable repairs after any attacks to prolong communications disruption, without specifying how or where this would be done. These remain statements and threats attributed to officials, separate from Windward’s tracking of the vessels’ movements.
Potential risks from cutting several cables include slower internet services and disruption to financial transactions, e-commerce and cloud computing, Reuters reported. The scale of the impact would depend on whether data traffic could be rerouted and on the alternative capacity available. A TeleGeography researcher said less than 1% of international bandwidth capacity passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which could limit the direct global impact of cutting cables there, while regional services would remain vulnerable to disruption. The Reuters report said the Red Sea route could have a greater impact: capacity passing through it accounts for about 3% of global international demand and about 10% of interregional data traffic. These are estimates for different routes and do not constitute evidence of disruption on any of them during the period tracked by Windward.
Restoring communications during wartime could be complicated by higher insurance costs and delays in permits to enter territorial waters, experts cited by Reuters said. At the Manama Dialogue, Bahrain’s foreign minister said Iran had continued to threaten data facilities, including subsea cables, even after the ceasefire, describing this as a continued pattern of attacks and threats. The prospect of escalation hung over the 3-day security forum in the Bahraini capital, the Associated Press reported. A UAE presidential adviser said his country hoped for a diplomatic breakthrough mediated by Qatar to avert a new round of confrontation between the United States and Iran, warning that military solutions would not provide quick ways out of the crisis. These statements remain part of the diplomatic and security tensions surrounding the cables; the published report on the vessels offers no evidence of sabotage or a market reaction.