In less than a week’s time, a fourth submarine cable was severed in West Asia, disrupting voice and telecommunication traffic between Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Even though sources attributed the disruption on Sunday night to power outage and not a ship’s anchor that affected the earlier two Mediterranean cables (FLAG Telecom’s FLAG Europe-Asia cable and SeaMeWe-4), thousands of bloggers across the world are attributing this to a possible sabotage in the Mediterranean Sea in a bid to isolate Iran.

Cutting these cables might affect Iran’s ability to defend itself since communication is of vital importance during military action, they allege.

UPDATE: Flag plays down net blackout conspiracy theories

Flag Telecom on Monday played down conspiracy theories over the recent damage to undersea cables that has seriously disrupted internet and international telecoms services across the region.

Two intercontinental cables connecting Europe and Asia were cut off the coast of Egypt on Wednesday, followed by breaks in two more cables off the UAE coast on Friday. Flag owns two of the affected cables.

The initial breaks affected internet access and international calls in Egypt, the Gulf and south Asia, while disruption resulting from damage to the latter two was centred around the Gulf region.