Middle Eastern submarine cables under attack

February 4, 2008 -- Middle Eastern submarine cables under attack


Parties, as yet unknown, are subjecting undersea cables that carry Internet and phone traffic to repeated attacks. After three cables were cut, two off of Alexandria, Egypt and a third, the FLAG FALCON ring cable, between Dubai and Oman in the Persian Gulf, a fourth cable cut was reported on January 3 between Qatar's Haloul island and the United Arab Emirates island of Das, also in the Gulf.

Contrary to previous reports in the corporate media, Egypt's Communications and Information Technology Ministry said the two cables that were severed near Alexandria last week, FLAG Telecom and SEA-Me-We4, were not cut by the anchors of ships. Egyptian authorities examined photographic footage of the restricted maritime area and no ships were seen 12 hours before and 12 hours after the time of the cable cuts.

Time-domain reflectometers are used to calculate the exact location of cable faults and the times at which they occur.

Only two countries have been unscathed by the four submarine cable cuts: Israel and U.S.-occupied Iraq. Intelligence sources are reporting that Israel and/or the United States are being blamed by Internet users in countries from Egypt to the Gulf and Iran to India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka for committing sabotage against the cables and causing the resulting Internet disruption.

Speculation about an attack on the submarine fiber optics cables has some merit. The Joint Information Operations Planning Handbook, issued by the Joint Command, Control, and Information Warfare School of the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia in July 2003, stated the following about physical destruction of information technology assets:

"In theory, the last resort in the commander’s choice of assets, destruction should be considered, just like the “soft kill” IO [Information Operations] capabilities as a viable choice for conducting IO. Again, ROE (Rules of Engagement] will play a major role in determining if destruction is available during a particular phase of an operation. Destruction must be supported by other capabilities and related activities of IO. At a minimum, IO planners should consider supporting destruction with PSYOP [Psychological warfare Operations] and Public Affairs."

First accounts, reported widely by the global corporate media, that the Mediterranean cuts off Egypt and the cut of the Dubai to Oman cable, were that they were caused by ships' anchors. This now appears to have been a disinformation campaign, one that fits neatly into the Pentagon's information operations doctrine.

The Pentagon's doctrine on spreading false information is stated as follows in the IO Planning Handbook: "Counterpropaganda consists of specific PSYOP and/or Public Affairs activities aimed at countering hostile PSYOP or propaganda directed towards the United States, its allies or coalition partners, their individual and collective military forces, and friendly populations. Counter-propaganda activities must be carefully formulated and closely coordinated between the joint force commander’s PSYOP and Public Affairs organizations."

The following represent the Pentagon's information technology targets. Transmitters, receiver, and antenna are all considered fair game. "Wetware" is the human-IT interface.


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US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat, Russia Responds With Air Forces

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1067.htm

Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East’s banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.

These reports state that the Americans became ‘enraged’ this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.

Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey’s rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran's Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.

But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia ‘warned’ the United States to ‘back off’ of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi’s decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.

Though the American President personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US’s Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.

It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.

But, as these reports state, the ‘worst nightmare’ of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.

American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in ‘lock-step’ with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a ‘stampede’ by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.

Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad , Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called ‘nuclear options’ by severing the three major undersea cables connecting the Middle East’s major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.

The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.

Moscow’s actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.

To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled "Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic", and which says:

"Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling," an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 "Bear" strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 "Blinder" bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region."

To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, “Should the Saudi’s effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.

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Three Internet Cables Slashed in a Week: Has Iran lost all Internet Connectivity? by Mike Whitney
by Mike Whitney
Global Research, February 3, 2008

CNN reports that: “An undersea cable carrying Internet traffic was cut off the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, officials said Friday, THE THIRD LOSS of a line carrying Internet and telephone traffic in three days.
The first two cables “account for as much as three-quarters of the international communications between Europe and the Middle East”, so it is expected that the loss of the third cable will plunge large parts of the Middle East into darkness.
According to Mathaba Net, the latest incident took place “two days after the cable cut which “cut off Iran” and affected the rest of the Middle East and West Asia. Internet Traffic Report web site reports that Iran has lost all Internet connectivity. (http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm)
Israel and Iraq’s Internet connections are still “intact”. (Mathaba.net http://mathaba.net/news/?x=580589)
“Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai’s Internet Service Provider “DU”, said that the incident was “very unusual” and that the cause of the incident “had not yet been identified.”
From Mathaba News:
“The only 2 countries that were unaffected were Israel and Iraq, the only two close Anglo-American allies in the region, both remaining completely unaffected by the cable cuts, leading to theories for the causes of the cuts, which have so far been given as having been caused by ships dragging their anchors across the cables. The fact that two rare incidents have happened in the same week, and both with cables owned by the same company, on either sides of Israel and the importance of the Internet to telecommunications and business, lends suspicion to the events.” (Mathaba.net http://mathaba.net/news/?x=580589)
Coincidence or Network Warfare?
Recently, a document entitled Information Operation Roadmap was declassified by the Pentagon because of a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The importance of information warfare is clearly laid out in this document - Here is an extended excerpt from an article by Brent Jessop, “Full Spectrum Information Warfare” published by Global Research:
“Information, always important in warfare, is now critical to military success and will only become more so in the foreseeable future….. Information operations should be centralized under the Office of the Secretary of Defence and made a core military competency.
“Objective: IO [information operations] becomes a core competency. The importance of dominating the information spectrum explains the objective of transforming IO into a core military competency on a par with air, ground, maritime and special operations. The charge to the IO Roadmap oversight panel was to develop as concrete a set of action recommendations as possible to make IO a core competency, which in turn required identifying the essential prerequisites to become a core military competency.”

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Opec rejects US calls for more oil – Jan 20, 2008


there are some submarine cables north of the British Isles....

SOURCE

February 3, 2008

US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat, Russia Responds With Air Forces

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East’s banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.

These reports state that the Americans became ‘enraged’ this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.

Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey’s rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran's Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.

But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia ‘warned’ the United States to ‘back off’ of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi’s decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.

Though the American President [pictured top left with Saudi King] personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US’s Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.

It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.

But, as these reports state, the ‘worst nightmare’ of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.

American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in ‘lock-step’ with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a ‘stampede’ by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.

Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad [both pictured top left 2nd photo], Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called ‘nuclear options’ by severing the three major undersea cables connecting the Middle East’s major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.

The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.

Moscow’s actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.

To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled "Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic", and which says:

"Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling," an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed "Blackjack" by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 "Bear" strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 "Blinder" bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region."

To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, “Should the Saudi’s effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.]

UPDATE 2-Saudi state bank urges govt to cut dollar exposure
By Souhail Karam

RIYADH, Jan 12 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's largest state bank urged the government to reduce the kingdom's exposure to the dolllar by investing more assets outside the United states and gradually changing the riyal's peg to the weak U.S. currency.

National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia's biggest by assets, said the world's largest oil exporter should set up a sovereign wealth fund to invest surplus revenues, now partly managed by the central bank, which has $285 billion in foreign assets.

The bank's statement, prepared by its chief economist, is the latest sign of pressure on the government to review exchange rate policy for the first time since 1986. The central bank and officials have repeatedly ruled out any policy shift.

"Time has come to reconsider the continued pegging of the Saudi riyal to U.S. dollar, provided that this is done gradually, taking into account the unfavourable impact on official reserves, which are mostly denominated in dollars," said Said al-Shaikh, National Commercial's chief economist.

The government should set up a sovereign fund to "increase the returns on investment of most government surpluses, which are currently invested in U.S. Treasury bonds", Shaikh said.

The kingdom should "diversify government investments across asset types, countries and different currencies...to reduce risks and increase profitability," he said.

Concerns that state investors, including those in Gulf oil exporters would shift assets away from the dollar helped drive the U.S. unit to record lows on global markets last year.