Backbone Cable Severed
An attack on the fiber-optic backbone connecting Damascus and Homs disrupted internet and mobile services for thousands of Syrians across four governorates from the early hours of Saturday, 30 May 2026 until that evening. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said on Sunday, 31 May that the network had returned to its standard operating state after the damaged section was repaired.
The ministry said the cut began at 2:11 a.m. local time on 30 May and that repair crews from the Syrian Telecommunications Company restored the severed link by 6:16 p.m. the same day, after roughly 16 hours of degraded service for subscribers in the affected governorates.
Four Provinces Affected
Connectivity degraded sharply across the provinces of Homs, Aleppo, Hama, and Tartous, with subscribers reporting partial or total loss of internet for most of the day. The Damascus–Homs fiber route is one of the principal arteries of the national network, carrying voice, data, and digital service traffic between the capital and the central, northern, and coastal governorates.
Because so much traffic is concentrated on a single corridor, the ministry said, any disruption there is directly reflected in service quality across several provinces at once.
Apology and Mandatory Notifications
The ministry issued a formal apology to subscribers and faulted the operating telecom companies for failing to inform customers about the cause of the outage or the expected restoration time. It said new rules will require operators to publish emergency statements and send text-message updates whenever a major incident interrupts service, calling such notification a basic obligation rather than a voluntary courtesy.
A Pattern of Attacks
The ministry described the cable cut as part of a growing series of attacks on telecommunications infrastructure and said it would coordinate with other government bodies on additional protective measures for the network. It also thanked maintenance crews from the Syrian Telecommunications Company for repairing the line under what it called difficult technical conditions.