Houthis could sever global Internet lines by targeting submarine cables, expert says
Houthi control over areas with submarine communication cables raises fears of potential cyber warfare that could disrupt global internet connectivity amid escalating military operations in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, posing significant threats to international trade and security in these waters.
Fahmi Mohammad*, a technical specialist at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in Sana’a, spoke to The Media Line about the extent of the Houthis’ technical capabilities to carry out such an attack and the extent to which the group’s leaders can exert political pressure through this card to achieve their goals.
“The Ansar Allah group (the Houthis) controls the majority of the locations through which these cables pass,” he explained, noting that the fiber optic cables are located at the bottom of the sea and hundreds of meters below the earth’s surface. “Accessing [them] requires advanced capabilities that allow access to the depths of the sea and handling the cables.”
Despite doubts about the Houthis’ possession of these capabilities, Mohammed does not rule out that the Houthis do have submarines and advanced weapons capable of carrying out such attacks “especially after Ansar Allah group announced It has many boats and submarines that are technically capable of reaching these cables.”
Fahmy added that the Houthis, through the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the telecommunications and internet companies under its control, employ a group of engineers, some of whom work directly with the Chinese company Huawei.
“They [the Yemeni engineers] have sufficient technical capacity to participate in any military operation targeting submarine cables if Ansar Allah wanted that,” Mohammed confirmed.
On February 24, HGC Global Communications Limited announced that access to the Internet in the East African country of Djibouti had become more difficult, according to the Associated Press. The press linked the outage incident to events in the Red Sea at the time….
