Iran Will Target Undersea Cables and Data Centers

Iran is threatening to attack energy facilities, undersea telecommunications cables, and data centers and artificial intelligence infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region if the United States and Israel resume their bombing campaign. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said that Tehran could strike targets in as many as seven regional countries, and that if Iran is attacked, the region's "vital economic arteries" could also be hit. He added that the economic infrastructure enabling attacks on Iran cannot be considered untouchable either. He did not specify which countries he meant, but it is not hard to guess, since most American bases and the regional investments of American tech giants are located in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

The threats were echoed by several members of Iran's leadership. Mehdi Mohammadi, an adviser to parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who led the talks with Washington, believes that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have already agreed in principle on a new strike, although he says its outcome is far from certain. "We regard the next conflict as an existential threat," Mohammadi said, adding that Iran "is breaking the temporal and spatial boundaries of the conflict," meaning there are no longer any red lines in its strategy. Reza Nasri, an international lawyer close to Iran's foreign ministry, warned that a new war would not stay confined to a single territory, and that the power grids, desalination plants, refineries and ports of the Gulf states could also be destroyed, leaving tens of millions of people without water and electricity, while a new wave of refugees could head toward Europe, and a complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz could push the global economy into recession. The Fars News Agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, also reported that Tehran has already instructed its units that if Iranian officials are assassinated and civilians are killed in another major war, retaliation could target not only military but also political objectives.

The threat against digital infrastructure is not an empty phrase. According to a summary by Al Jazeera, Rezaei had already warned on October 13 that cables, data centers and artificial intelligence facilities could become targets, and in March, according to the Tasnim news agency, the Revolutionary Guard included the cloud infrastructure of Google, Microsoft and Oracle in Israel and the Gulf states on its list of "new targets." In the same month, a Telegram post named 17 American companies, including Google, Meta and Apple, as well as the Emirati artificial intelligence company G42. G42 is building, together with OpenAI and Nvidia, the Stargate UAE project — a planned five-gigawatt American-Emirati artificial intelligence campus. Iran has the means to carry out its threats: Iranian drones have previously struck two data centers directly at Amazon's AWS cloud service provider in the Emirates, and near a facility in Bahrain, a strike caused physical damage. AWS announced in September that it had still not been able to restore several sites in Bahrain and one in the Emirates. According to Andreas Krieg, a researcher at King's College London, an attack does not even need to destroy the servers to render an entire facility inoperable, since it is enough to cripple the power supply, cooling or telecommunications links. Krieg believes the threat is aimed at least as much at Gulf governments as at Washington, to deter them from supporting another American offensive. In his view, the Emirates are particularly vulnerable because their artificial intelligence strategy is closely intertwined with that of American tech companies. The vulnerability of undersea cables is also well known: according to TeleGeography estimates, more than 90 percent of data traffic between Europe and Asia passes under the Red Sea, and in 2024, and again in September 2025, cable cuts slowed the internet in the Middle East and South Asia.

The threats come at a time when the United States and Israel are preparing for another joint campaign. American military advisers have already drawn up a list of potential targets, including missile bases, oil facilities and nuclear sites. On Monday, Netanyahu met in Israel with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to discuss the timing and objectives of a possible attack. By early November, Washington will be reinforcing its presence in the region with three aircraft carriers, several thousand marines, fighter jets and special forces, although Trump has already backed away from resuming strikes several times over the past four months. Tensions are also rising over events in the Strait of Hormuz: the Revolutionary Guard announced on Wednesday that it had simultaneously attacked four commercial vessels engaged in oil transfers in the strait, and that three others had struck mines, although these claims have not been confirmed by independent sources. The price of Brent crude oil rose to $113.4 a barrel.

Diplomatic channels, meanwhile, remain open. Iranian and Pakistani mediators are examining new ceasefire conditions, under which billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets would be released if Iran lifts its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, UN inspectors would be allowed access to the bombed nuclear facilities, and Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be transferred to a third country. Tehran is reported to have offered to lift the blockade and begin nuclear talks within seven days, but only if certain of its conditions are met first, including the lifting of US sanctions. On Friday, the foreign ministers of three European countries, as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, are meeting in Istanbul to discuss the crises in Iran, Yemen and Palestine.

Ugar