Nine cables cut:

BREAKING!! ***NINE*** or more cables cut?!!! ***EIGHT*** CONFIRMED
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Can someone confirm these cable cuts independently, please?

one off of Marseille, France
two off of Alexandria, Egypt
one off of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf
one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in the Persian Gulf
one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf
one in the Suez, Egypt
one near Penang, Malaysia
initially unreported cable cut on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?)


Connecting The Many Undersea Cut Cable Dots - 9 Or More?

By Richard Sauder, PhD
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.


The last week has seen a spate of unexplained, cut, undersea communications cables that has severely disrupted communications in many countries in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. As I shall show, the total numbers of cut cables remain in question, but likely number as many as eight, and maybe nine or more.

The trouble began on 30 January 2008 with CNN reports that two cables were cut off the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, initially severely disrupting Internet and telephone traffic from Egypt to India and many points in between. According to CNN the two cut cables "account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East." CNN reported that the two cut cables off the Egyptian coast were "FLAG Telecom's FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4, a cable owned by a consortium of more than a dozen telecommunications companies".(10) Other reports placed one of the cut cables, SeaMeWe-4, off the coast of France, near Marseille.(9)(12) However, many news organizations reported two cables cut off the Egyptian coast, including the SeaMeWe-4 cable connecting Europe with the Middle East. The possibilities are thus three, based on the reporting in the news media: 1) the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut off the coast of France, and mistakenly reported as being cut off the coast of Egypt, because it runs from France to Egypt; 2) the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut off the Egyptian coast and mistakenly reported as being cut off the coast of France, because it runs from France to Egypt; or 3) the SeaMeWe-4 cable was cut both off the Egyptian and the French coasts, nearly simultaneously, leading to confusion in the reporting. I am not sure what to think, because most reports, such as this one from the International Herald Tribune, refer to two cut cables off the Egyptian coast, one of the two being the SeaMeWe4 cable,(11) while other reports also refer to a cut cable off the coast of France.(9)(12) It thus appears that the same cable may have suffered two cuts, both off the French and the Egyptian coasts. So there were likely actually three undersea cables cut in the Mediterranean on 30 January 2008.

In the case of the cables cut off the Egyptian coast, the news media initially advanced the explanation that the cables had been cut by ships' anchors.(10)(13) But on 3 February the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said that a review of video footage of the coastal waters where the two cables passed revealed that the area had been devoid of ship traffic for the 12 hours preceding and the 12 hours following the time of the cable cuts.(5)(11) So the cable cuts cannot have been caused by ship anchors, in view of the fact that there were no ships there.

The cable cutting was just getting started. Two days later an undersea cable was reported cut in the Persian Gulf, 55 kilometers off of Dubai.(11) The cable off of Dubai was reported by CNN to be a FLAG Falcon cable.(10) And then on 3 February came reports of yet another damaged undersea cable, this time between Qatar and the UAE (United Arab Emirates).(6)(7)(11)

The confusion was compounded by another report on 1 February 2008 of a cut undersea cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka.(19) If the report is accurate this would represent a sixth cut cable. The same article mentions the cut cable off of Dubai in the Persian Gulf, but seeing as the Suez is on the other side of the Arabian peninsula from the Persian Gulf, the article logically appears to be describing two separate cable cutting incidents.
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Egyptian ship disappears

By Anastasia Tomazhenkova: Several days ago a cargo ship with its 14-member crew left an Egyptian port and went in the Red Sea en route for Sudan. The vessel went missing. Egypt authorities launched a search for the ship Tuesday, a government spokesman said.

The vessel, Badr 1, left Egypt's Suez Canal carrying a 1,700 metric ton (1874 U.S. ton) cargo and a crew of nine Egyptians, including the captain, four Sudanese and a Yemeni on board, said Ahmed al-Quweisny, a foreign ministry official.

The ship's destination was Port Sudan, but it was unclear when and where the vessel went missing along the 1,280 kilometer (800-mile) route.

Rescue ships are thoroughly combing the area along the stretches of the Sudanese and Egyptian shores backed up by a search plane, said al-Quweisny. But so far, all efforts to locate the ship, which did not send a distress signal at the time it went missing, failed.

Meanwhile, a Sudanese official with the transportation ministry, Bridges Fatih Saeed met Tuesday with Egyptian ambassador to Sudan, Mohamed Shazali, to discuss the missing ship. The two said that both countries' shipping authorities would continue doing "their best" to find the vessel, said the state SUNA news agency in Khartoum.

SUNA said the ship, built in 1960 and owned by the Afro-Asia Shipping Company, carried a cargo of cement. The company has said its vessel conformed to all safety requirements and had all needed permits for sailing, according to al-Quweisny.

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FOLLOW UP
OP, nice thread, but...

no links that you provided (nor any news i've searched with google, yahoo and ask.com) says that 6,7,8,9 or even more cables are cut.

the article you provided from this guy who wrote it ASSUMES and CLAIMS that 6,7,8,9 or even more cables are cut, yet provides no evidence what so ever that this is really the case.

it's nothing more than a rumor.

feel free to proof me wrong.

til' that it's still 4 or 5 cables.

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Gerald

CUT CABLES BACKGROUNDER, MAPS, PHOTOS, IRAN, LINKS

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