You listening, al-Qa’eda?

Posted on 1 February 2008 by trippenbach

UPDATE: Another cable has been severed, this time off the coast of Dubai . . .
ORIGINAL POST: Wreaking global ruckus requires no radioisotopes or weaponized anthrax. A couple of box cutters in the right place can reap you a whirlwind. Anyone hear what’s happening in the Middle East and India this week? I give you the destructive potential of an ordinary cargo ship:

It took just one vessel to inflict the damage that brought down the internet for millions. [...] the internet blackout, which has left 75 million people with only limited access, was caused by a ship that tried to moor off the coast of Egypt in bad weather on Wednesday. Since then phone and internet traffic has been severely reduced across a huge swath of the region, slashed by as much as 70% in countries including India, Egypt and Dubai.

The right thing in the wrong place at the right time can make all the difference in the world . . .

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3 Responses to “You listening, al-Qa’eda?”

  1. rustedangel, on February 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm Said:

    I find this idea very interesting; maybe the foundation for a good FT adventure - but let me play devil’s advocate for a second.

    I’m willing to concede half the point. Yes, it is very easy to do a lot of damage by accidentally dropping an anchor on fiber-optic cables. The cables are vulnerable to random damage stemming from events like this or that 2006 earthquake off Taiwan. That said, I doubt if this disaster was in any way deliberate.

    Actually targeting these lines would be very, very difficult - after all, deep underwater ops are unlikely to be an area of specialty for a terrorist cell trained in the bekka valley. You could always attack the cables closer to shore, but physical defense would be a lot easier there, and you’d probably be spotted quickly.

    So, short of some enterprising jihadis converting boilers into crude, anti-internet depth charges, I don’t know if this is really a serious “imagine what the terrorists could do if…” situation. Isn’t it a little like saying “see how dangerous white picket fence posts are?! one of them got driven right through this palm tree!”

    Sure, but you still need a hurricane, a bending tree, and a pretty chaotic bunch of windy variables to fall into place before that fence post turns into a weapon.

  2. trippenbach, on February 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm Said:

    First off, see the update. Second, I’m not saying that we’re going to see a bunch of jihadis in submersibles with diamond-tipped cutting tools attached. I’m just saying that it’s chilling to realize that this entire global network that we depend on - the one making this conversation possible - is fundamentally tied to a handful of arm-thick cables laid across the seabed.

    Makes you think. That’s all.

  3. rustedangel, on February 1st, 2008 at 7:54 pm Said:

    That is undoubtedly true; it made me think quite a lot. Was I just trying to make myself feel better?

    Anyways, if the terrorists had been trained by, say, you and I, they could totally pull this off. Also, regarding the update; maybe I was totally wrong. Somebody could be depth-charging those cables right now.

    So… are the cables now going to enable me to get arrested by csis?

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