U.S. airstrikes on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps positions on Sept. 1 were aimed at preempting possible Iranian attacks on undersea communications cables in the Strait of Hormuz, the Saudi Arabian channel Al Arabiya reported, citing an unidentified U.S. source.
After a request for comment from MBN, the U.S. Central Command’s (CENTCOM) press office neither confirmed nor denied the report, instead saying only that “U.S. forces struck Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets including air defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine laying capabilities, and communications sites” in a Sept. 1 press release.
“The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members,” the release continued.
While there is no confirmation for either claim—that the Iranian regime is targeting cables or that the U.S. is seeking to preempt such attacks—The Wall Street Journal separately reported in August that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was planning “further escalation” in the strait, including sabotaging undersea internet cables.
Gulf telecom companies are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in undersea connectivity and related infrastructure to power AI and data center ambitions. All that investment and the geography of the strait make for a “digital bottleneck,” said Mostafa Ahmed, head of political and security studies at Al Habtoor Research Centre, which has researched cable vulnerabilities.
Adding to the risk is the IRGC’s “highly sophisticated maritime sabotage capabilities, including advanced marine drones and specialized naval units trained for precise underwater operations,” Ahmed said.
“If CENTCOM indeed struck targets to preempt an attack on this infrastructure, it validates the hypothesis that Iran is actively planning to leverage this vulnerability,” he added.
Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, agreed that undersea voice and data cables, as well as the points where they connect on land, are very vulnerable.
“Those cables are very much known to Iranians,” Nadimi said. “They can easily interdict and cut them using special operations, using depth charges, or they can attack landing stations with drones.”
A Genuine Tactical Shift or Just Rhetoric?
Whether this marks a genuine strategic pivot by the Iranians is unclear.
“I believe we are seeing an accelerating shift in Iran’s deterrence doctrine,” Al Habtoor’s Ahmed said. “As traditional options, like closing maritime chokepoints or attacking commercial shipping, face immediate and devastating retaliation. Tehran is pivoting toward the deliberate targeting of civilian digital networks.”
Such a pivot could paralyze global energy supply chains while damaging digital infrastructure, according to Ahmed.
Masha Kotkin, a fellow in the Energy Security and Climate Change program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was more skeptical. “The IRGC hasn’t threatened subsea cable infrastructure since March 2026,” she said and instead referred to a May report on Iranian state media floating fees on data cables transiting the strait. “It seems that hostilities are centered around commercial vessels at this time.”
Nonetheless, cable installers and operators took notice. Maritime data provider Windward reported in May that Alcatel Submarine Networks, a French company that is one of the top three undersea cable manufacturers in the world, paused all repair operations in the region after Iran demanded “protection fees” for seabed cables.
Some hardliners in Iran want more than fees.
Hossein Shariatmadari, managing editor of the hardline newspaper Kayhan, openly called for severing cables. “Is it not our indisputable right, in order to bring these sources of evil to their knees and cut off their lifeline, to prevent internet cables from passing through the depths of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz?” he wrote in an editorial.
If Iran were to attack or sever a cable, fixing it would be neither fast nor easy, said Kotkin. She listed the obstacles: only four repair vessels out of a small global fleet are in the area, insurance requirements, safety concerns for repair crews, and permission to operate in potentially hostile territorial waters.
Nadimi was more optimistic. “Many of these cable [companies] can fairly quickly install alternative routes to increase system reliability and load management,” he said, adding that “many networks these days, especially now with AI, they have self-healing ability” that allows “bypassing of damaged nodes and paths relatively easily.”
An Open Question
Why Iran has not acted already is unknown, but Lynette Nusbacher, a former British Army intelligence officer and military historian, told the Jerusalem Post that Iran has not needed to “play that card,” since its primary leverage against the global economy is the strait’s commercial tanker traffic, not its cables.
Nadimi, however, credits deterrence: “If it is proved that Iranians have cut cables… I think if President Trump decides to retaliate, he can go after [Iran’s] telecommunication nodes.”
Proving Iranian responsibility is difficult, he said, but added that everyone already assumes any damage to cables would be Tehran’s fault.
“It’s like an elephant in the room,” he said.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
