Iran just named seven internet cables as targets in the Gulf
Iran's military just put a number on it.
Seven undersea cables. Running under the Strait of Hormuz. Its top military spokesperson says the whole world's internet depends on them.
Hossein Mohebi holds that role for the IRGC. He said it a few hours ago. In his words, the cables carry the world's internet and commercial data, and he is reminding the enemy of that fact.
So that's Iran's military naming the target. Out loud.
There's an image too. Mohebi posted it on X. Looks AI-generated. A missile, with a caption: "The world will see what will happen."
He never explained what it meant. And he never said it was linked to the cables. So we don't know if it is.
Now, this isn't a new threat. It's an old one, with a number stapled on.
About a week ago, Mohsen Rezaei said something similar. He runs Iran's Supreme National Security Council and used to command in the IRGC himself. He said undersea cables, data centres and AI facilities worth $2 trillion would come within Iran's range if war breaks out again.
No breakdown of that $2 trillion. No specific site named.
Rezaei also said America has valuable assets in the UAE and around the strait that Iran hasn't put on the target list yet.
So here's what's actually new. Same threat. But now it's the military's official voice saying it. And now there's a number: seven cables, named specifically, for the first time.
But here's the problem. The idea that "the world's internet" runs through the strait doesn't hold up.
TeleGeography tracks global cable networks for a living. It says more than 90% of the data moving between Europe and Asia runs through cables under the Red Sea. Not Hormuz. TeleGeography says those Red Sea routes sit at least 900 miles from the strait. And it says Hormuz cables mainly serve the Gulf countries themselves.
The International Cable Protection Committee is based in Portsmouth. In May, it said cables through the strait carry under 1% of global international bandwidth. It called the risk regional, not global. The cybersecurity publication inCyber reported the same figure.
So that's two separate assessments, both saying the opposite of what Iran's spokesperson just claimed.
There's a smaller mismatch too. The Committee counted five active cable segments crossing the strait, not seven. One count is cables generally, the other is segments live at one point in time, so they're not quite measuring the same thing.
What would actually get hit? The Gulf states themselves. inCyber named Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq as most exposed, because they don't have many backup routes. Iraq runs on just two international cable systems, full stop.
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