Posted on 02/08/2008 12:51:56 PM PST by decimon
CNN) -- A telecommunications company on Friday blamed a ship anchor for cutting one of three severed undersea cables that snarled Internet traffic throughout the Middle East last week.
FLAG Telecom's FALCON cable spanning Dubai and Oman was snapped February 1 by an abandoned six-ton ship anchor, the company said, and will be repaired by Sunday.
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Another target of the Internet sabotage speculation is Islamic terrorists. "It was a six-ton anchor that took out that cable in the Persian Gulf. Unless al Qaeda has extremely strong frogmen or submarines, I'm not sure how they did it," laughed Beckert.
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(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I heard 4 (5?). Did this roque ship anchor take them out too or was it all a bizarre coincidence?
what about the other 4??
No news here, please move along, don’t get bothered by this.
I heard that they were tired of endless Brittney updates.
Apparently there were four reported broken with the fourth actually being a power outage ashore. If so then this article leaves two cable problems undetermined.
Magic Anchor theory.
..laughed Beckert.
Ha ha, nothing to see here. Ho Ho, my God this is so frickin funny! There’s nothing going on that 4-5 cables got cut about the same time. Ha Ha, Al Qaida can’t swim.
Nobody really thought it was Al Qaida you laughing moron. It’s either Russia, China, India, us or Israel. Or maybe a couple acting together.
ping
It wasn’t a big lobster.
Four cut cables? Doesn't seem so.
At any rate, that anchor bounces quite a bit:
"Scores of cut undersea cables are reported each year, Beckert said, acknowledging that three cables leading into the volatile Middle East would attract more attention."
“Magic Anchor theory.”
ha!
Where did you read that?
hmmm - nice shot maybe?
Ok. I call BS. What most people don't realize is that the anchor usually does not dig into the bottom to hold a ship in place. What holds the ship in place is the weight of the anchor and the anchor chain piled on the bottom. "Dragging anchor" is something that happens during storms and is a bad thing.
An abandoned anchor would be not attached to a ship and so not dragged, no?
I think I see the logic of his point, but perhaps it could have partially severed the cable before the anchor line snapped.
His opinion is that it was not an anchor break, but was done deliberately to isolate the Middle East - maybe a test run for more breaks.
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