Internet outages in Syria, Iraq and Libya

Internet users in various countries in the Middle East experienced Internet outages and disconnections from time to time for various reasons.

During the years of fighting in Syria, we have witnessed numerous times of disconnections, which usually lasted several hours, and frequently changing. Perhaps this is activity of the authorities and may be the result of damage caused by the fighting. During 2016 such outages were recorded on February 26^th for two hours, extensive downtime on March 3^rd, began around noon and lasted about two hours due to disruption in power supply in the country, a full three hours of downtime on June 2^nd, an hour and a half on June 7^th and so on 8^th, and two more hours on June 9^th. Another wave of stoppages of about two hours occurred on June 12^th, 13^th, 14^th and 15^th.

On July 15^th, the media reported that Iraq’s Internet service across the country was down, except in the region of Kurdistan, presumably due and response to demonstrations held in various cities and the capital, in protest against government corruption. This downtime was preceded by other events: the almost complete disabling of the Internet for 35 minutes on June 24^th and a temporary shutdown on June 8^th to prevent examinees from copying high school graduation (and 14, 15, 16, and May 26 for the same reason). Alongside other temporary downtimes, usually for a few hours, on May 28^th and 30^th and on June 2^nd.

On July 19^th, the media reported that Libya’s Internet service in several cities in the center of the country was down, due to sabotage of communication cables. This lockout began at 02:49 UTC, lasted about three hours in which the Web was almost completely disabled. The next day, there have been other disruptions for similar periods from 04: 00-07: 00 UTC.

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