Jeanne-Mây Desurmont | 20 March 2024

Summary

• An Iran-backed Houthi group has targeted foreign-owned ships with anti-ship ballistic missiles in the Red Sea.

  On 2nd March 2024, after being hit by a missile, the MV Rubymar has sunk and cut four subsea cables, damaging the Internet connectivity in the region.

  Although accidental, this incident heightens the risks of weaponisation of subsea cables as a grey-zone tactic by the Houthis to impact the global economy at a cross-continental level.

Since October 2023 and the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza, Houthi rebels in Yemen have actively targeted ships crossing the Red Sea to publicly support the Hamas. The armed group, backed by Iran, has launched anti-ship ballistic missiles targeting foreign-owned ships in the Bab al-Mandab Strait. While these missiles attacks are exacerbating geopolitical tensions, their main objective is to disrupt one of the world’s busiest commercial shipping lanes. 

While all the armed parties are operating above the sea, there is growing concern about the soft underbelly of maritime security: the subsea cables. As the main component of the world’s Internet infrastructure, the cables underneath the Red Sea are responsible for the connectivity between Africa, Europe, and Asia. Underwater cables transport around 90% of the cross-continents data traffic and trillions of dollars transferred every day.  

On 2nd March 2024, the MV Rubymar, a Belize-flagged and UK-owned bulk carrier cargo ship has sunk, two weeks after being hit by a Houthi missile strike. Among important environmental concerns, the shipwreck severed four subsea cables: the Europe India Gateway, Asia-Africa-Europe 1, TGN-Guld and Seacom. This impacted internet connectivity and the flows of data between several countries on the three different continents. The telecommunications companies were able to reroute the internet flows through mainland channels, but the threat of a worse incident is still prevalent, making national and global markets more vulnerable to Houthi’s strikes.  

This underwater cut is collateral damage in the standoff between the Houthi and the West. Yet, the capabilities needed to intentionally sever subsea cables are largely above the current means of the Houthi. However, the sinking of the Rubymar indicates that shipwrecks could be used as a tactic to cause damage underwater and achieve the overarching goal of the armed group which is to disrupt the shipping lane as much as possible.  

These preoccupations are part of a broader geopolitical concern about subsea cables which are considered as critical infrastructures by many states. Since the damage caused to the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, malicious acts targeting telecommunications cables are understood as part of grey-zone warfare tactics as they fall below the threshold of war but with important impacts on national security and global economy.  

Forecast

• Short-term: The disruption of the subsea cables has been well mitigated by private telecommunications companies, but they are unable to safely repair the cables due to the persistent risks of missile strikes. While they managed to reroute the data traffic, further damages are highly likely to hinder the mitigation efforts, which carry a great risk of paralyzing the internet across three continents.  

• Long-term: As the standoff between the Houthi and the West is persevering, the risk of collateral damage on subsea cables is heightened from medium to relatively high. Houthi rebels can likely compensate for their lack of military capabilities by intentionally sinking boats near the submarine networks to reap additional tactical gains and, on a larger scale, impact the global economy.