In the span of three days, five undersea communication cables have been severed — cutting off the internet and phones to Iran, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain.

Seriously— no one has come to the conclusion that U.S. submarines are down there tapping the lines? Hello?

From Slashdot:

The idea is, you cut the cable at point ‘A’, and make it look like it was an accident (ship anchor, etc). Then, before they fix the cable, you trot on down the cable a few (tens of) miles to point ‘B’ and cut the cable there, too. But now you splice in a repeater that copies everything sent over that cable and sends it …to you! When the cable is fixed at the original spot, comm traffic starts up, and no one is the wiser.

Map of the cuts.