Executive Summary
- Iran and the Houthis threaten undersea cables. Although Iran’s and its Houthi proxies’ capabilities remain unproven, attacks on undersea cables in the Red Sea could have consequences extending well beyond the Strait of Hormuz.
- Engine room strikes deepen Iran’s campaign against shipping. Tehran’s efforts to disable vessels transiting the region’s maritime corridors could constrain energy flows without closing Hormuz.
- The crisis in Yemen escalates. Persistent Houthi strikes risk inflicting greater economic damage and drawing more regional actors into the volatile conflict in Yemen.
1. The Growing Iranian and Houthi Threat to Undersea Cables
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s escalating plans to counter the United States military now extend from targeting oil flows to threatening global digital connectivity. Senior Iranian security officials said last week that Tehran plans to attack undersea cables in the Middle East if US or Israeli forces resume strikes against Iran. Multiple cuts could disrupt internet services, finance, e-commerce, and cloud computing across the region and worldwide. Wartime risks, insurance costs, and the difficulty of obtaining access permits could delay needed repairs if such undersea links are cut.
The Revolutionary Guards have, thus far, announced no plans to target cables on the Red Sea floor. But that maritime thoroughfare could present a consequential target for the Islamic Republic, especially if Iran’s Houthi proxies in Yemen were to contribute to the effort. Linking Europe, East Africa, and Asia, the Red Sea carries roughly 90 percent of the Europe–Asia capacity via its undersea cable architecture, and 3 percent of global demand for international bandwidth.
Tehran has not hesitated to strike the region’s digital infrastructure in recent months. Iranian strikes this March hit two Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities in the United Arab Emirates and damaged infrastructure near another AWS building in Bahrain. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also named Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Nvidia as potential future targets. Microsoft’s plans to invest more than $400 million by 2030 in connectivity across the Middle East highlight the redundancy needed to protect the Gulf Arab states’ growing artificial intelligence projects.
Previous Houthi strikes show how attacks on shipping can damage the digital infrastructure at the bottom of the sea. On February 18, 2024, the Houthis fired a missile that struck the MV Rubymar, a Belize-flagged bulk carrier, forcing its crew to abandon ship. The vessel subsequently drifted before sinking in early March 2024.
The vessel’s dragging anchor reportedly severed three Red Sea telecommunications cables, disrupting connectivity across parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe and requiring months of costly repairs. By the end of February 2024, communications in and through the Middle East were seriously degraded as a result. The Houthis need not have sophisticated seabed warfare capabilities to damage the region’s communications infrastructure and expose vulnerabilities in the global economy.
Assessing the IRGC’s recent threats against undersea cables requires examining its capacity for seabed warfare. The organization’s expanding underwater arsenal warrants attention. Nazir-1, a diesel-electric extra-large unmanned underwater vehicle unveiled in 2020, shows that the IRGC wants to develop higher-endurance, higher-payload capabilities, potentially for naval mine warfare.
The success of the group’s Nazir-1 program is debatable, as the vehicle may never have seen serial production. The subsequently identified Nazir-5 suggests the IRGC has continued experimenting, although its mission remains uncertain due to limited open-source intelligence. Naval warfare, intelligence collection, mining, and weaponized applications are possible but unproven capabilities of this newer vessel. Iran has also displayed a smaller system combining underwater-drone and torpedo characteristics compatible with the IRGC’s midget submarines, which indicates an interest in relatively inexpensive unmanned strike weapons.
Tehran’s underwater threat extends beyond unmanned systems. Designed by the Isfahan Underwater Research Center and reportedly tested by both the country’s regular navy and the IRGC Navy, the Global Positioning System–equipped, two-seat Sabehat-15 could serve as a vehicle for maritime sabotage. Its coastal reconnaissance, mining, and combat-diver transport roles could support operations against underwater infrastructure, potentially including cables. Thus far, no publicly documented cable attack has shown that Tehran possesses this capability, but the lack of demonstrated employment should not be mistaken for the absence of threat. Manned special-operations platforms deserve attention alongside Iran’s expanding underwater-drone programs.
Permitting requirements and region-wide tensions have concentrated the cables under the Strait of Hormuz in Omani waters. This concentration has exposed many important cables to Iranian threats, including Africa-Asia-Europe 1, the FLAG Alcatel-Lucent Optical Network, and Gulf Bridge International. From a technical perspective, the cables under the Strait of Hormuz carry largely regional significance. The transmission lines connecting Europe and Asia mostly run under the Red Sea, hundreds of miles away from Hormuz, limiting these cables’ direct exposure to the fighting there.
Moreover, the impact of any Iranian sabotage attempts depends on the availability of alternative cables and the terrestrial capacity that operators can deploy. Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar connect to the wider world through Saudi Arabia, while Kuwait also connects through Iraq. The UAE has overland links and submarine landings concentrated at Fujairah, outside Hormuz on the Gulf of Oman. Saudi Arabia has few Gulf landings; most of Riyadh’s international bandwidth arrives via its Red Sea coast. None of the Gulf states depends exclusively on submarine cables. But these countries’ terrestrial alternatives to undersea connections may lack capacity and remain vulnerable to hostilities. Research published in 2024 identified the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital 20-mile-wide maritime chokepoint separating Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa, as a narrow passage with global significance for digital services. Cables beneath this strait carry an estimated 90 percent of the capacity between Europe and Asia and remain important to worldwide internet traffic.
This is why Iran’s Houthi proxies could play an essential role in the IRGC’s potential seabed-warfare efforts. The Houthis’ underwater threat is directly tied to Iranian supplies. In January 2024, the US Coast Guard intercepted an Iranian weapons shipment bound for Yemen that included components for unmanned surface and underwater vehicles. In mid-February 2024, US Central Command announced that it had struck a Houthi unmanned underwater vehicle the previous day, marking the first observed Houthi employment of such a system since the maritime campaign against the group began in October 2023. Subsequently, intercepted Iranian shipments contained underwater- and surface-drone components, supporting claims of a supply connection between the Revolutionary Guards and the Houthis.
These open-source indicators suggest that Iran is pursuing an interesting underwater force-generation vision centered on robotic and midget submarines, as well as swimmer-delivery vehicles for coastal reconnaissance, mining, and special operations, in addition to anti-ship missiles and drones. Together, these developments indicate a widening asymmetric underwater threat across the Gulf and the Red Sea. The extent to which the IRGC or the Houthis can reliably locate and disable seabed cables is unknown. Nonetheless, even a moderate-probability, high-impact scenario involving the region’s undersea connectivity poses a serious escalation risk with potential global consequences.
2. Iran’s Anti-Ship Tactics Shift to Engine-Room Strikes
The IRGC’s maritime campaign in the Gulf is intensifying, placing regional energy flows under growing pressure. October has been the worst month for commercial shipping attacks around the Strait of Hormuz. By October 23, the International Maritime Organization had recorded 120 incidents across Hormuz and the Middle East since the war began, while Reuters reported that over 30 very large crude carriers had been damaged during recent hostilities, including 11 in October.
United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported an even higher figure, recording 135 conflict-related incidents by October 16, although incomplete voluntary reporting limits the reliability of these figures. In a number of cases, targeted vessels may proceed unreported for various reasons, reportedly including shady ransom deals. The UKMTO data also show a sharp rise in ship damage. These tallies underscore mounting regional insecurity, as Iran’s escalating campaign against ships at sea seeks to sustain pressure on global energy markets through persistent maritime disruptions.
In the first two weeks of October 2026, the IRGC conducted at least 23 recorded attacks on ships in or near the Strait of Hormuz, many involving missiles and drones. At least five of these Iranian attacks struck engine rooms, compared with zero such strikes in September. Attacks on ships’ engine rooms can ignite fires, disable a vessel’s power and propulsion systems, and force ships into months of costly repairs.
The strategic consequences of engine room strikes extend beyond the ships themselves. Each vessel withdrawn from service due to an Iranian attack tightens an already constrained shipping market. Iran does not need to seal the Strait of Hormuz completely to disrupt global energy supplies. Sustained damage to the fleet carrying energy products can impose its own economic toll.
Expert assessments suggest that the IRGC is likely using infrared terminal guidance to conduct these engine-room strikes, allowing weapons to home in on their targets using heat signatures. The Islamic Republic may also be using jet-powered drones with infrared guidance. Regime-linked media have showcased the claimed combat use of the jet-powered Shahed-238 against US positions. The drone reportedly has a range of up to 1,240 miles, and some variants reportedly feature infrared or optical guidance. These configurations suggest that Iran may be using the Shahed-238 to strike ships, although neither its use against tankers nor its involvement in engine-room strikes has been confirmed.
Whether shipping can remain commercially viable under sustained attack is an open question. Whatever weapons Iran may be using to strike engine rooms, prolonged vessel downtime allows the IRGC to impose costs on the West beyond the immediate battlespace. Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open therefore requires more than preserving a navigable corridor. It requires limiting damage, sustaining transport capacity, and restoring confidence that ships can complete their voyages.
3. Assessment of the Conflict in Yemen
The expanding war in Yemen is generating military and economic consequences well beyond the country’s borders. On October 26, Houthi spokesmen claimed that the militia had targeted pumping stations for Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Saudi authorities did not immediately corroborate these claims.
The Saudi-led coalition supporting Yemen’s central government, meanwhile, announced that it had intercepted missiles and drones over Riyadh. The coalition is now targeting Houthi missile launchers and subterranean military facilities in Yemen that Iran helped build and sustain. These continued launches highlight the challenge of degrading the Houthis’ arsenal, which is bolstered by mobile missile launchers and underground facilities. Heightened missile- and drone-warfare activity over Saudi Arabia, alongside increasingly demanding interception requirements, could eventually strain the interceptor stockpiles of the country’s air- and missile-defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni city of Taiz faces mounting civilian suffering as fighting and Houthi restrictions on supply routes worsen already serious shortages of food, water, fuel, and medicine. Yemeni military officials stated that coalition airstrikes hit the abandoned Sofitel Hotel east of the city. The Houthis have used the structure as a command-and-control hub and fortified it with heavy armor and artillery.
The economic burdens of the war in Yemen are becoming increasingly visible across the region. From October 8 to 25, cancellations affected 86 percent of scheduled flights at Riyadh’s main airport, while nationwide cancellations surpassed 7,800. Repeated strikes and uncertainty over further attacks can severely disrupt civilian connectivity even when airport infrastructure escapes permanent destruction.
The conflict’s growing scope is also drawing other countries deeper into the crisis. On October 26, Egypt’s parliament approved a defensive support package for Saudi Arabia, although Riyadh has not formally sought Egyptian troops. Cairo’s decision creates additional options for assisting the kingdom, though it does not make any deployment of forces imminent.
As the conflict intensifies, the central question for analysts and decision-makers is whether military pressure on the Houthis can reduce their launch rates before sustained disruptions deepen Saudi Arabia’s economic losses and draw other regional actors deeper into the war.