Iran Threatens Gulf Undersea Cables as U.S. Pulls Diplomats From Saudi Arabia

DUBAI -- Tehran has drawn up detailed plans to cut undersea communications cables in the Persian Gulf if the United States and Israel attack Iran again, and two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters this week that the country intends to block repairs as well, so that disruptions to internet and telephone connections would be prolonged. The disclosure landed against a backdrop of fresh diplomatic signals that the window for a negotiated pause in the conflict is narrowing fast.

The Reuters report, published October 23, quoted one of the officials in language that left little ambiguity about Tehran's posture. "If Iran is attacked, there will be no more red lines," the official said, citing undersea cables and military bases -- including covert ones -- as valid targets. Yadollah Javani, deputy head of political affairs for Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had already signalled this threat publicly days earlier, identifying seven major internet cables running beneath the Strait of Hormuz as potential strike objectives if Iranian infrastructure came under attack.

Top Iranian security official Mohsen Rezaei widened the scope further, warning this month, according to reporting reviewed across multiple outlets, that US-linked digital infrastructure across the Gulf -- including data centres and artificial intelligence facilities -- could face targeting in any renewed conflict. A second Iranian official quoted by Reuters put the responsibility for any such damage squarely on Washington's Gulf partners, saying they "should hold Washington, not Tehran, responsible."

The conditional nature of those threats matters, but so does the context in which they're being issued. On October 21, the U.S. State Department ordered non-emergency staff at the embassy in Riyadh and its satellite consulates to leave Saudi Arabia, as well as their family members. According to reporting by the Associated Press, Houthi rebels -- backed by Tehran -- had struck civilian airports and oil infrastructure inside the kingdom, killing at least one person at King Fahd International Airport in Dammam and two more in a drone strike on a Saudi Aramco oil field. King Khalid International in Riyadh, according to the AP, had been closed since October 10 after a severe attack.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott, cited by the Washington Post, said the Houthis had "increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in civilian casualties and severe travel disruptions." Four U.S. officials told Reuters that missions in other Gulf states would also order family members out.

Saudi Aramco's headquarters in Dhahran was evacuated after an alarm, Bloomberg reported, with staff asked to work from home while the cause was investigated.

The diplomatic withdrawal is Washington's second such order in 2026, according to House of Saud News, which also noted that no parallel departures had been announced by Britain, France, Germany, or the European Union -- a gap likely to attract scrutiny among Gulf partners who rely on a coordinated Western presence as a deterrent signal.

For Gulf states that have staked enormous sums on digital infrastructure, the cable threat carries a different kind of weight than missile trajectories do. Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran programme at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told Reuters that Tehran's cable warnings were calibrated to press Gulf governments and corporate executives to lobby the Trump administration. "Tehran wants Gulf states and corporate executives to press Trump over the risks his policies pose to their investment plans," Vatanka said.

Analysts note that the actual global internet impact of severing cables in the Strait of Hormuz would be limited: TeleGeography research director Alan Mauldin told Reuters that less than one percent of international bandwidth passes through the strait, even though undersea cables as a category carry roughly 99 percent of global internet traffic. For the Gulf states themselves, however, the calculus is sharper, and Tehran appears to know it.

With U.S. and Israeli military planners reportedly drawing up options for renewed strikes after the November midterms, according to CNBC, the region is in one of its more volatile passages of the year -- diplomacy still nominally in motion, the infrastructure of deterrence visibly fraying.

Sources cited:
- Reuters (via Iran International) (https://www.iranintl.com/en/202610237494)
- Reuters (via Hawaii Tribune-Herald) (https://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/2026/10/24/nation-world-news/iran-has-detailed-plans-to-hit-gulf-undersea-cables-if-war-resumes-officials-say/)
- Reuters (via Algemeiner) (https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/10/23/iran-detailed-plans-hit-gulf-undersea-cables-war-resumes-officials-say/)
- Internazionale / Reuters (https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie-reuters/2026/10/23/iran-has-detailed-plans-to-hit-gulf-undersea-cables-if-war-resumes-officials-say)
- Eurasia Review / Al Bawaba (https://eurasiareview.com/25102026-could-the-next-iran-war-cut-your-internet)
- The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/10/22/us-orders-some-diplomats-leave-saudi-arabia-amid-houthi-attacks/)
- Associated Press (via U.S. News & World Report) (https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-10-21/us-orders-some-diplomats-to-leave-saudi-arabia-as-fears-of-escalating-houthi-attacks-rise)
- Bloomberg (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-22/us-pulls-diplomats-from-saudi-as-houthi-iran-tensions-worsen)
- Japan Times / Reuters (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/10/22/world/us-diplomats-saudi-arabia-houthi/)
- House of Saud News (https://houseofsaud.com/us-saudi-diplomat-departure/)
- CNBC (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/22/us-iran-trump-hormuz-.html)