Iran has detailed plans to cut Gulf undersea cables if US and Israel strike again, officials say

Two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters on October 23 that Iran has prepared detailed plans to sever undersea communications cables in the Persian Gulf should the United States and Israel launch fresh military strikes — and that Tehran would then move to obstruct repair efforts in order to extend the disruption indefinitely.

If Iran is attacked, there will be no more red lines ... from undersea cables to military bases, including covert ones.— Senior Iranian security official (anonymous)

The same official warned Washington not to 'play with fire,' claiming Iran has full access to the cables and could easily destroy them, according to Reuters. Neither the US State Department nor Iran's Foreign Ministry replied to Reuters' requests for comment, and no Gulf state issued an immediate response.

Yadollah Javani, deputy head of political affairs for Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), gave a specific figure: seven major internet cables run beneath the Strait of Hormuz, all of which he said could be targeted if Iranian infrastructure were attacked. The strait separates Iran and Oman, linking the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

The threat is broader than cables alone. According to Reuters, senior security official Mohsen Rezaei cautioned this month that a renewed conflict could bring Iranian strikes against US-linked digital infrastructure throughout the Gulf, including data centers and artificial intelligence facilities. Two Amazon Web Services facilities in the UAE were directly hit during the previous round of fighting, and infrastructure near one of its Bahrain facilities was also damaged, Reuters reported. At the height of that conflict, the IRGC named Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Nvidia as legitimate targets.

A second Iranian security official directed blame toward Washington's partners in the region, with Reuters reporting the official as saying Gulf governments 'should hold Washington, not Tehran, responsible for any damage to undersea cables.'

Analysts say the threats are calibrated to apply pressure well beyond the battlefield. According to Reuters, Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said Tehran's goal is to push Gulf governments and corporate leaders to lobby President Donald Trump about the dangers his policies pose to their regional investment plans. Dina Esfandiary, Middle East lead at Bloomberg Economics, told CNN that Iran's strategy aims 'to impose such a hefty cost on the global economy that no-one will dare attack Iran again.'

Tehran wants Gulf states and corporate executives to press (US President Donald) Trump over the risks his policies pose to their investment plans.— Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program, Middle East Institute

The economic stakes for the Gulf are significant. Gulf governments have been investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI and technology infrastructure as part of efforts to diversify their economies beyond oil, deepening ties with US technology firms in the process, according to Reuters and Asia Times. Reuters reported that Microsoft alone has committed to spending more than $400 million on subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The global impact of severing cables in the Strait of Hormuz would be real but geographically concentrated. According to the International Telecommunication Union, roughly 99% of all global internet traffic moves through undersea cables. That said, TeleGeography, a telecommunications research firm, estimates that cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz represent less than 1% of global international bandwidth as of 2025. The regional picture is far more severe: Gulf states could face serious disruptions to internet connectivity, oil and gas export operations, and banking. India could see a large share of its internet traffic affected, threatening its outsourcing industry, according to Mostafa Ahmed, a senior researcher at the UAE-based Habtoor Research Center.

Two of the cables running through the strait — Falcon and Gulf Bridge International (GBI) — pass through Iranian territorial waters, according to Alan Mauldin, research director at TeleGeography, who spoke to CNN. Most other cables have been deliberately routed along the Omani side of the waterway to avoid Iranian waters, Mauldin said. Ahmed told CNN that the IRGC has the capability to follow through, given its arsenal of combat divers, small submarines, and underwater drones, and he cautioned that a large-scale attack could set off a cascading 'digital catastrophe' across several continents.

Restoring severed cables during wartime would be far harder than in peacetime. Experts told Reuters that repair efforts could be hampered by steeper insurance premiums and the difficulty of securing permits to enter territorial waters. One Iranian official said Tehran would specifically aim to prevent those repairs, prolonging outages as a pressure tool.

Iran has also been pursuing a parallel economic angle. CNN reported that Iran wants to charge the world's largest tech companies for using subsea cables passing through the Strait of Hormuz, with Iranian military spokesperson Ebrahim Zolfaghari declaring on X: 'We will impose fees on internet cables.' IRGC-linked media said companies including Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon would be required to comply with Iranian law, with submarine cable companies paying licensing fees and repair rights given exclusively to Iranian firms. How Iran could enforce such demands against companies barred from paying it under US sanctions remains unclear, CNN noted.

The Red Sea represents a potentially more damaging front than the Strait of Hormuz, experts said. Mauldin estimates that cables in that corridor carry roughly 3% of total global international demand and about 10% of inter-regional traffic. Iran has made no public statement indicating it plans to target Red Sea cables, but the potential consequences would be considerably graver if its Houthi allies in Yemen adopted the same approach — a scenario with a real precedent: in 2024, three submarine cables were cut after a ship hit by Houthi militants sank and dragged its anchor across the seabed, knocking out nearly 25% of internet traffic in the area, according to Hong Kong-based HGC Global Communications.

The plans for cable attacks reflect a conviction within Iran's leadership that any renewed US military campaign would require a stronger response than previous rounds of conflict, Reuters reported. The plans are detailed, officials said, though neither official disclosed exactly how or where attacks would be carried out.

Why it matters — If Iran acts on these plans, Gulf states and parts of Asia face severe internet and financial disruptions — and the threat is designed as much to pressure US tech companies and Gulf governments as it is to deter military action.

Reported by reuters.com, ground.news, newsbreak.com, cnn.com, asiatimes.com, i24news.tv, ynetnews.com