Saudi Attack Leads to Nationwide Internet Outage in Yemen

Attack targeted key telecom building in port

Yemen lost its Internet connection as of 3:00 AM local time, following the latest round of Saudi airstrikes against the port of Hodeidah.

The FALCON submarine cable is the in-road to Internet access in Yemen, through a landing station at the Hodeidah port. The airstrikes targeted a TeleYemen building in the city, among other targets.

The Saudis presented this as “accurate airstrikes to destroy the capabilities” around the port. They have yet to acknowledge that this meant targeting telecom sites, nor all the civilian targets they hit.

It is unclear how long Internet access will be down in Yemen. The nation has very limited infrastructure, and no redundancies to rely on.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.