Internet collapses in war-torn Yemen after recent attacks by Houthi rebels targeting Israel, US

The exact cause of the internet collapse in Yemen remains unclear. Both NetBlocks and CloudFlare reported the outage but did not offer a specific reason.

As of now, neither the Houthi rebels nor Yemeni telecommunication officials have made any official statements regarding the internet outage.

No, there was a previous outage in January 2022 when a Saudi-led coalition bombed a telecommunications building in the city of Hodeida. However, there is no immediate information suggesting a similar attack this time.

The undersea FALCON cable is crucial for Yemen’s internet connectivity. It carries internet into Yemen through the Hodeida port along the Red Sea. While there is another landing in Yemen’s far eastern port of Ghaydah, the majority of Yemen’s population resides in the west along the Red Sea.

The internet outage comes in the wake of recent drone and missile attacks by the Houthi rebels, including strikes targeting Israel and the downing of an American MQ-9 Reaper drone. These events have raised concerns about the possibility of a wider regional conflict, and the internet outage adds to the instability in the region.

The conflict in Yemen began in 2014 when the Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north. This led to a Saudi-led coalition intervention and escalated into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the U.S. providing intelligence assistance to Saudi Arabia initially. However, international criticism over civilian casualties led to reduced U.S. involvement, although there are suspicions of ongoing drone strikes against Yemen’s local al-Qaida branch.

The Yemen conflict has resulted in over 150,000 casualties, including both fighters and civilians, and has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, claiming tens of thousands of lives. While a ceasefire held until October, the Houthis have been gradually increasing their attacks as a permanent peace agreement has yet to be reached.