CYBERSPACE — And then there were nine.At last count, the number of cuts in undersea communications cables serving the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia jumped from five to as many as nine or more. The damage to the massive fiber-optic lines that carry telephone and internet communications between Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and other worldwide markets have caused reported “severe disruptions” in communication but no one yet has been able to get a definitive count on the number of lines affected.

On January 30th, CNN reported cuts in two cables off the Egyptian Mediterranean coast, severely disrupting as much as three-quarters of the international traffic between Europe and the Middle East. Other reports placed the cuts in one cable off the Egyptian coast and another off the coast of France, near Marseille (which has the same name as the cable off the coast of Egypt). It now seems likely, according to Richard Sauder, PhD, a self-styled authority on exposing covert U.S. government operations, that all three cables were cut nearly simultaneously and reported erroneously in the ensuing confusion.

By February 3rd, three more cables had been cut, Sauder said: one in the Persian Gulf off Dubai, one between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and one running through the Gulf of Suez to Sri Lanka. According to Sauder, ship traffic was discounted as the source of the damages after authorities reviewed video surveillance of the area during the 24-hour period surrounding the cut reports and discovered no ships were in the vicinity.

On February 4th, two additional cables were reported cut: one in the Persian Gulf near Bandar Abbas, Iran, and another near Penang, Malaysia. That brought the total to eight. Add a cable reported by the Khaleej Times as having been cut January 23rd but not reported, and the total reaches nine. To date, none has been explained definitively.

Sauder said he suspects sabotage because the cables were damaged in such a brief period of time and primarily affected Muslim nations, but Sauder is a world-class conspiracy theorist whose suggestions may or may not be reliable. He primarily is known for the creation of “The Sauder Report: Notes from the Underground,” a 768-page database containing U.S. government documents Sauder believes prove the feds have been developing secret, taxpayer-funded technologies and undersea military installations since at least the 1960s.

Sauder is not in the least hesitant to lay the blame for the cable cuts at the feet of the U.S. and Israel, who he suggests have been plotting for years to destroy the Middle East. To read his entire explanation about why, see his lengthy article at Rense.com/general80/cable.htm.