Suspected sabotage of fiber-optic cables disrupts internet for 2,000 residents in Wasit

WASIT — Fiber-optic internet cables were damaged Wednesday in an underground maintenance tunnel in Wasit governorate, leaving more than 2,000 residents without service.

The cause of the damage is under investigation.

“We have contracts in Wasit managed by the General Company for Communications, through which two private companies operate — Earthlink and Al-Khibra,” Moayad Al-Humaidawi, director of Wasit Communications, told 964media. “The incident affected Al-Khibra, which uses our infrastructure and has limited coverage in Wasit governorate. One of its lines was cut, causing the outage for over 2,000 users.”

Al-Humaidawi said the local communications department provided technical support to Al-Khibra engineers, who were able to repair the damage and restore service.

In a statement, Fiber X, a service operated by Al-Khibra, described the incident as “a dangerous escalation that targets the Iraqi citizen’s trust in public services,” adding that parts of the Fiber X network, directly linked to the government’s fiber-optic project, were affected. The company said the damage should be treated as a “direct threat to the country’s sovereign infrastructure.”

Fiber X said its teams worked immediately to restore service and pledged to continue supporting the government internet project. “The trust of our subscribers gives us strength, and we will keep moving forward to make Fiber X a symbol of progress and innovation in Iraq,” the company said.

Residents expressed frustration over repeated service interruptions and pointed to what they believe is a pattern.

“The fiber-optic internet service from Fiber X was down for six hours,” said Sajjad Hassan, a local resident. “Later we received a statement from the company saying the main cables had been sabotaged.”

“This is not the first time public internet infrastructure has been vandalized,” Hassan added. “The government spent billions to install it, and we believe this is due to competition between companies — but it’s the people who are paying the price. We demand that security forces take firm action against these acts.”