Syrian regime Internet network repairs 'guise for more surveillance'

Syria’s state owned communications company has announced that maintenance is underway to rehabilitate damage to a major offshore cables which provide internet inside the war-torn country, warning that, as a result, internet services could be negatively affected for a period of 10 days. 

In a statement released on Tuesday the Syrian Telecommunication Establishment (STE) stated that damage to the cable required "immediate and unexpected" maintenance, adding that internet would be cut to some provinces in the country between 19 and 28 October.

The state-owned company also noted that the damaged cable provided 60 percent of the international internet capacity in Syria adding that it was seeking to "secure alternative international pathways to bring internet service back to normal as quickly as possible." 

Opposition suspicions

STE is the official operator of landlines in Syria, and also provides internet services to regime-controlled areas of Syria, with rebel-controlled areas reliant on remote satellite connections.

Only last week, Syria’s Communications and Technology Ministry announced that it had successfully resorted internet services with "full capacity" to regime-controlled Aleppo after years of unreliable service. However, within hours of the announcement users had taken to social media to complain that the internet was not functioning efficiently.

Tuesday’s announcement was greeted with suspicion by some with one activist group focused on ensuring safer online communications inside Syria claiming it was a ruse.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the SalamaTech Project said that the announcement that repairs were set to take place on the offshore fibre-optic cable located off Syria’s Medditeranean coast "confirms" that the presence of a Russian naval vessel that arrived in the area recently "is either already spying on this internet cable or will be in the future."

Last week an article in the Daily Beast noted the appearance of the Russian naval ship Yantar off the coast of Syria stating that the vessel was equipped with remote submarines "capable of severing the cables miles under the ocean’s surface."

The article also noted that "internet in Syria has a history of going down at times when the regime of Bashar al-Assad has plotted military offenses" such as is currently the case in Aleppo.

For its part SalamaTech called on all Syrians to "take the highest degree of caution when using the internet" adding that it was of utmost importance for users to only operate through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) in order to encrypt their connection and avoid regime surveillance.