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Iran has drawn up detailed plans to strike undersea communications cables in the Persian Gulf if the United States and Israel attack it again, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, gave few details and did not say how or where Tehran would strike. One said Iran would try to block repairs after any attack to prolong disruptions to communications, including internet service, and warned that if Iran is attacked, “there will be no more red lines.”
The second official said Washington’s Gulf allies, which have poured money into digital infrastructure, “should hold Washington, not Tehran, responsible for any damage to undersea cables.”
The threat builds on public warnings from Tehran.
Brig. Gen. Yadollah Javani, political deputy to the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s elite military force, told Iran’s Al-Alam television on Wednesday that Iran could destroy “seven important cables that pass under the waters of the Strait of Hormuz” if its infrastructure is attacked.
He argued Gulf states backing Washington would suffer far more than Iran.
Senior security official Mohsen Rezaei warned earlier this month that a renewed conflict could also target U.S.-linked data centers and artificial intelligence facilities across the Gulf, Reuters reported.
The global impact of a strike on cables in the Strait of Hormuz may be limited.
Undersea cables carry more than 99% of international data traffic, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a U.N. agency, but less than 1% of global international bandwidth passes through the Strait of Hormuz, said Alan Mauldin, research director at telecommunications research firm TeleGeography.
The Red Sea could present a more consequential target, particularly if Iran had help from its Houthi allies in Yemen, Reuters reported, though Tehran has not publicly threatened cables there.
Mauldin estimated that capacity routed through the Red Sea accounts for about 3% of global international demand and roughly 10% of traffic between regions.
Analysts told Reuters that multiple cuts could still slow internet service and disrupt financial transactions, e-commerce, and cloud computing, and that higher insurance costs and permit delays could hamper wartime repairs.
Iran has hit Gulf tech infrastructure before.
Amazon Web Services said two of its data centers in the United Arab Emirates were directly struck in March, during the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran, and a Bahrain facility was damaged by a drone that landed nearby.
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the threats aim to deter renewed conflict by making Gulf governments and U.S. companies fear for their investments.
The State Department and Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, and Gulf states offered no immediate comment.
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