Why Are the Octosquids Cutting Our Cables?

[Lemur]

Anybody been following the cable-cutting weirdness in the Mideast? Depending on who's doing the counting, somewhere between five and seven undersea data cables have been cut in a very short span of time. Here's some coverage, here's some more.

Beckert says that the most likely explanation is that a fishing boat damaged the cables by catching them in its net or that a ship accidentally cut them with its anchor – these are responsible for 65% and 18% of cable problems respectively. The first two cables were only 400 yards apart, suggesting that they were damaged in the same incident. “It might have been sharks with laser beams on their heads but I’m guessing it’s not,” says Beckert. Viewed this way, it’s two incidents in a week, which is higher than average but not unusual – last year their were 50 damaged cables in the Atlantic alone.

Not sure what to make of this. Sharks with frickin' laser beams are clearly silly, but devious octosquid commandos are a real and present danger. Anybody know what's going on?

-edit-

Okay, is it just four cables? I can't get a fix on this.