[mdlug-discuss] Internet undersea line cut

[Aaron Kulkis]

gib at juno.com wrote:
>  
> 
> A cable under the sea has been cut.  Many areas are affected.
> 
> Egyptian officials said that around 70% of the country's online traffic 
> was being blocked . . .
> 
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/31/internet.blackout.asia?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront 
> <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/31/internet.blackout.asia?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront>
> 

I find it ... suspicious... that TWO different cables were cut,
hours apart, in the same vicinity.

If it's discovered that the cause was not dragging anchors,
(lines cut by stretching until they snap will look much
different from those that are cut with tools or torches)
then I wonder who did this, and for what reason.

My primary suspicion here is a radical Egyptian group called
the Muslim Brotherhood.  According to a book I read (*)
by a couple of guys who a counter terrorism experts and were
members of Pres. Clinton's National Security Council, the
Brotherhood is the parent organization to the PLO's Fatah
wing, the same group which assassinated Anwar Sadat; Formed
around 1920 -- they have a history of spreading an ideology
which is now most infamously used by Al Queda and have always
advocated overthrowing Egypt's government to replace it with
a caliph, they are strongly suppressed by the Egyptian
government, and the threat posed by the Brotherhood is one
of the primary reasons why Egypt does not move closer to a
popularly elected government like Turkey.  The Brotherhood
also has factions in Lebanon and Syria.  In the west, the
most well-known member was PLO leader Yassir Arafat.

(*)
<http://www.amazon.com/Age-Sacred-Terror-Daniel-Benjamin/dp/0375508597>
The most common cover is shown here:
<http://www.randomhouse.com/rhpg/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812969849>