Reuters: Iran Plans Strikes on Gulf Undersea Internet Cables if Hit by US or Israel
Severity: WARNING
Detected: 2026-10-23T17:03:15.596Z
Summary
Iranian officials told Reuters Tehran has prepared plans to attack undersea internet cables in the Gulf if the US or Israel launch new strikes, and to obstruct repair efforts. The threat targets the nervous system of global finance and data flows at the same moment oil is spiking and markets are already positioned for a US strike on Iran.
Details
Iran is preparing to take the next Gulf crisis below the waterline. Two senior Iranian officials told Reuters that Tehran has drawn up plans to attack undersea internet cables in the Gulf if the United States or Israel strike Iran again, and intends to block subsequent repair work to prolong outages. The report, filed around 16:56 UTC, turns a regional military confrontation into a direct threat to the digital and financial infrastructure that underpins global trade.
According to Reuters’ sources, the contingency plans focus on the dense cluster of submarine cables that route data between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia via the Gulf and Arabian Sea. These cables carry internet traffic, payments, high‑frequency trading flows, cloud computing, and corporate networks. The officials say the plans would be triggered only if Iran is attacked, positioning the move as retaliation rather than first strike, but the operational intent is to disrupt both the cables and subsequent repair missions, magnifying and prolonging the impact.
The stakes for governments, corporates, and ordinary users are immediate and concrete. Financial institutions in the Gulf, Europe, and South Asia could face latency spikes or outages just as markets react to any US‑Iran or Israel‑Iran exchange. Cloud‑hosted logistics and energy trading systems—already strained by diversion risks in the Strait of Hormuz—could be degraded. For civilians, even partial cable cuts can translate into slow or intermittent internet, disrupted payments, and impaired emergency coordination, particularly in Gulf states whose domestic economies are deeply wired into global data backbones.
For military planners, the report signals that Iran is expanding its deterrence toolkit beyond missiles, drones, and shipping harassment to include critical communications infrastructure. Subsea cable attacks are difficult to attribute conclusively in real time, occur in legally and militarily complex waters, and can be executed with relatively low‑signature naval or sub‑surface assets. A campaign against repair ships would further escalate things, potentially drawing in Western navies tasked with protecting not only tankers and warships but also civilian cable layers.
Markets now have to price not only the risk of a kinetic clash and potential shipping disruption through the Strait of Hormuz, but also the risk of impaired data flows through one of the world’s most important digital corridors. Oil already trading around $117 per barrel has room to spike further if investors see heightened probability of a double shock: physical crude flows at risk and financial/operational systems degraded. Global tech, telecom, and high‑frequency trading firms will be watching latency indicators and redundancy routes closely; insurers face a new class of hard‑to‑model infrastructure risk.
Over the next 24–48 hours, watch for: (1) public US, Israeli, and Gulf responses clarifying red lines around subsea infrastructure; (2) any visible repositioning of Iranian naval assets or suspicious activity near known cable routes; (3) statements from major cable consortia, cloud providers, and telecoms on redundancy and preparedness; and (4) further leaks or clarifications from Western intelligence services that could either validate or downplay the Reuters account. A confirmed attack or even a serious attempted interference with a major Gulf cable would likely trigger both a market shock and demands in Western capitals for direct defensive or retaliatory measures.
MARKET IMPACT ASSESSMENT: High potential impact: threat to Gulf subsea cables adds a new systemic risk layer on top of already rising Iran conflict premiums and $117 Brent. If traders price in credible cable disruption, expect safe-haven bids (gold, USD, CHF), downside for Gulf and Israeli equities, higher risk premia for global tech and financials reliant on low-latency connectivity, and more pressure on tanker/shipping insurance.
Sources
- OSINT