A company based in Hong Kong that operates the underwater internet cabling that crosses the Red Sea confirmed last Tuesday the cutting of three of these cables, which affected four connection lines between Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe, which It implied an impact of 25% of data traffic between Asia and Europe, or 17% of global traffic.
At the beginning of February, there was speculation that Yemen's Houthi rebels could take another step in their campaign to siege merchant traffic through the Red Sea corridor, which they maintain they are carrying out in favor of the Palestinians in Gaza and that In principle, it would target those ships linked in some way to the State of Israel. The latest incident was recorded yesterday: two explosions in front of a ship near Aden, according to the British maritime safety agency UKMTO.
This jump in Houthi attacks would consist precisely of cutting underwater optical cables. Sixteen of them run off the Yemeni coast, and the suspicion apparently came from three messages published on December 24 on the Telegram channels of the Houthis, the Lebanese Hizbullah and the amalgamation of Shiite militias in Iraq, all organizations They are allies of the Yemeni rebels in the same cause. The messages drew attention to the fact that the cable runs through the Bab el Mandeb Strait, which is under pressure from the Houthis.
Yemen Telecom and the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which is based in Aden (the capital, Sanaa, is in Houthi hands), issued the warning. Weeks later, after the cables were cut, the Houthis denied all responsibility.
Far from accusing them directly, the United States, which is carrying out its own bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, speculated on the possibility that it was an accident: it would not be the first time that the loose or neglected anchor of a merchant ship dragged I get an underwater cable or several of them, since they are usually grouped in bundles. Finally, last Thursday Pentagon sources stated that “currently, we believe that the damage to the submarine cables (...) is the result of a missile attack launched by the Houthis on February 18 against the Rubymar, which sank later. ...”
The Rubymar, a Lebanese merchant ship flying the Belizean flag of convenience, was hit by a Houthi anti-ship missile and sank two weeks later, on March 2, with its cargo of 21,000 tons of ammonium phosphate sulfate and sulphate, with the consequent environmental threat. She was the first ship sunk by the Houthis, and what happened with the internet cables would have this explanation, according to Washington. The attack would have forced the crew “to drop anchor and abandon ship.” “The first evaluations – pointed out the military spokesperson – show that the anchor probably cut the underwater cables that provide communication and internet services to the entire world when scraping the seabed.”
Specifically, it was the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 (AAE-1) cable, which connects Hong Kong and Marseille, with various stops, several of them in Middle Eastern countries; the Europe India Gateway (EIG), which runs from Bombay to Bude, on the south-west coast of England, and the Seacom/Tata-TGN-Eurasia, with origins in Bombay and South Africa, and which further ahead of the area where it was cut It branches off towards Djibouti and Zafarana in the Gulf of Suez.
HGC Global Communications, the operating company, immediately reported that it was redirecting internet traffic. In a north and east direction, from Hong Kong towards Europe through mainland China and the United States, and in a west direction through eleven other submarine cables in the same Red Sea.
Then apparently nothing irremediable happened. The unknowns, however, remain: Why did the Houthis and their allies draw attention to the undersea cables? Would they or their allies have the ability to sabotage them, always taking into account the depth of the seabed, which can be variable?
