While it does bear some consideration I think that some of the first acts of aggression in both world wars were attacks against underwater telegraph cabling, I'

While it does bear some consideration I think that some of the first acts of aggression in both world wars were attacks against underwater telegraph cabling, I'd be a little hesitant to jump to conclusions too quickly. There are a number of reasons why and how suchs cables could be taken offline. Sosuke mentioned one in particular: power issues. One of the first transatlantic telegraph cables was fried when the first operators, thinking it would take tons of power to "push" a signal all the way across the Atlantic, fried the cable and much of the equipment on the far end. While these aren't telegraph cables, the principle is the same. They may well have been taken offline because of recurrent power issues at one end or the other. Then again this maybe a prelude to another country in the Middle East getting pummeled. IMO, it's hard to say at this point.