Iran Threatens the Hormuz Internet Cables: Four Gulf States Have No Subsea Route That Avoids the Strait

At a Glance

• IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said on October 19 that seven major internet cables run beneath the Strait of Hormuz and that new targets and new weapons would be unveiled.
• Six live cables cross the strait today, with FIG and SEA-ME-WE 6 due in 2027, which brings the count close to Iran’s figure.
• Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar have no subsea route to the outside world that avoids Hormuz, because every cable they use lands inside the Gulf.
• Windward identified two OFAC-sanctioned tankers linked to Iran that drifted for days directly over regional cable corridors in the two weeks before the statement.
• FALCON and GBI land in Iran at Bandar Abbas and Bushehr, so cutting them would sever Iran’s own links as well.

Iran Named the Cables Before Naming the Targets

On October 19, IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi told a ceremony in Tehran that seven major internet cables run beneath the Strait of Hormuz, and that new targets and new weapons would be unveiled. He added that this time the response would be much harsher.

The statement did not come out of nowhere.

Earlier in October, Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei said Iran could strike U.S.-linked cables, data centers and AI facilities in a new war. In May, the IRGC said every cable crossing the strait could be placed under Iranian permits.

The count is close to accurate. Six live cables cross the strait today. 2Africa, AAE-1, FALCON, GBI, Tata TGN-Gulf and OMRAN/EPEG. Two more, FIG and SEA-ME-WE 6, are under construction and due in 2027, which takes the total to eight. Iran’s figure of seven sits between the current and the near-future count, per TeleGeography data.

The Cables That Cross the Strait

• 2Africa: Gulf branch to Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman. Meta, Orange, Vodafone, China Mobile, center3, Telecom Egypt, WIOCC, Bayobab.
• AAE-1: Qatar branch, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia. Consortium including e&, Ooredoo, Zain, Omantel, Mobily, China Unicom, PCCW.
• FALCON: Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman and Iran. FLAG.
• Gulf Bridge International: Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman and Iran.
• Tata TGN-Gulf: Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman.
• OMRAN/EPEG: Oman at Khasab, Diba and Barka, and Iran. Zain Omantel, Vodafone.
• FIG (under construction for 2027): Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman. Ooredoo.
• SEA-ME-WE 6 (under construction for 2027): Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia.

Four Countries Have Nowhere Else to Route

Exposure is not evenly distributed, and the difference comes down to geography rather than cable count.

Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar are the most exposed, because every cable they use lands inside the Gulf. All of their subsea traffic to the outside world has to pass through Hormuz.

Iraq has three live cables, all landing at Al Faw. Kuwait has five, Bahrain five and Qatar seven, but FOG, Qatar-UAE and Kuwait-Iran never leave the Gulf. That leaves Kuwait with three routes out, Bahrain with four and Qatar with five. Iraq is building a land route from Al Faw to the Turkish border with Ooredoo.

The UAE is better placed. Six cables land on its Gulf coast, but 14 land at Fujairah and Kalba on the Gulf of Oman, outside the strait though still within Iran’s reach.

Oman has two cables at Khasab, 11 on its Gulf of Oman coast, and five at Salalah and Qalhat on the Arabian Sea.

Saudi Arabia is the least exposed, with four cables at Al Khobar and 14 on the Red Sea at Jeddah, Yanbu, Duba and Haql. Even that is not immunity. Two Red Sea cables were cut near Jeddah in September 2025.

Sanctioned Tankers Were Already Above the Cables

The statement on October 19 followed vessel activity rather than preceding it.

In the two weeks before Mohebbi spoke, Windward tracked two OFAC-sanctioned tankers linked to Iran drifting for days directly over regional cable corridors, both in ballast, both with no commercial reason to stop.

The first was sanctioned by OFAC in September 2024 for moving cargo for Iran’s IRGC Quds Force. After idling off Khor Fakkan, it sailed to Muscat at 11 knots, slowed to under one knot at the cable corridors on September 30, and drifted for 73 hours before resuming speed and heading for Suez.

Inside that window, the behavior is specific. It arrived under power, drifted at an average of 0.6 knots with the engine off, crossed the edges of the AAE-1, Bay of Bengal Gateway and 2Africa corridors, passed within half a nautical mile of FALCON, GBI and MENA, then left to the southeast at 10 to 11 knots. Four days before the drift, it had changed its MMSI, call sign, and flag code.

EO imagery captured the vessel on station there on October 1 at 06:52 UTC, confirming its position independently of what it was broadcasting.

The second vessel, sanctioned by OFAC in November 2025 for carrying Iranian LPG, was running from the Malacca Strait toward a transfer off Dubai. On October 4, it stopped in the central Arabian Sea, 660 nautical miles out, and loitered for 115 hours at a median of 0.6 knots.

The drift crossed the AAE-1, FEA, SEACOM/TGN-Eurasia, IMEWE and SeaMeWe-4 routes in water roughly 3,700 meters deep. It was the longest drift recorded on that corridor since late May.

Neither drift can be characterized as a confirmed survey. What can be said is narrower. Two sanctioned vessels with Iranian links, both empty, both with destinations already set, made multi-day stops over cable routes in the weeks before Iran publicly threatened those cables, and both resumed normal speed immediately afterward.

Mapping does not require touching the seabed. A hull-mounted multibeam sonar covers a swath roughly 3.5 times the water depth, and deep-water systems built into a container can be fitted to a merchant vessel. Whether that happened here is not established.

Cutting the Cables Would Cut Iran Too

One constraint sits inside the threat.

FALCON and GBI land in Iran, at Bandar Abbas and Bushehr. Cutting either would sever Iran’s own links alongside the Gulf states’. OMRAN/EPEG runs between Oman and Iran, with the same problem.

That does not make the threat empty. It makes it selective. 2Africa and Tata TGN-Gulf do not land in Iran, and the two cables due in 2027 do not either. Any action that distinguishes between these systems would require knowing precisely where each one runs, which is what makes the loitering activity worth watching rather than dismissing.

What to Watch

Three things will indicate whether the threat is rhetoric or preparation.

Further loitering by Iranian-linked vessels over Gulf and Arabian Sea cable corridors, particularly over systems that do not land in Iran. Progress on Iraq’s land route to Turkey, which is the only alternative any of the four exposed states is actively building. And whether the FIG and SEA-ME-WE 6 routes, both due in 2027 and both running through the same strait, are redesigned in response.

The physical vulnerability is not new, and it is not fixable in the near term. What has changed is that it has been named publicly by the party best positioned to exploit it, and that vessels linked to that party were observed above the cables before the naming.

Written by Maya Romi, Senior Content Manager, Windward; analysis by Gilad Karo, Maritime Analyst, MIOC.