Sudan, Syria, and Iraq were among countries that experienced government-directed Internet shutdowns, in the last quarter, according to Cloudflare’s Q3 2025 Internet disruption summary.

The report covers disruptions occurring in the three months to September 30.

Although Cloudflare did not record any government-directed shutdowns in the first quarter of 2025, both the second and third quarters have seen blackouts in Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

These occurred for a variety of reasons. Cloudflare ascribes the shutdowns in Sudan, Syria, and Iraq to national exams at schools and universities. Venezuela’s shutdowns were caused by the government revoking the operational authority of Venezuelan provider SuperCable.

But the government-directed shutdown in Afghanistan was caused by the Taliban, which ordered a complete ban on fiber optic Internet connectivity as part of a drive to “prevent immorality.”

Unintentional damage to fiber optic cables also caused disruptions in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Pakistan, the UAE, South Africa, and Texas, US.

In Angola, a blackout that coincided with protests over a rise in diesel fuel prices was attributed to “public road works that affected the national fiber optic interconnections,” as per a statement issued by telco Unitel Angola. Some organizations suspect that the timing indicates that this could instead have been a government-directed Internet shutdown.

Power outages caused partial blackouts in Tanzania, the Czech Republic, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Curacao, Cuba, and Gibraltar.

Other unexpected interruptions include those caused by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake near eastern Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, which saw Internet traffic drop by 75 percent across several networks in the region; a cyberattack on YemenNet disrupted the country’s connectivity in mid-August; and a fire at the Ramses Central Exchange in Cairo, Egypt, impacted connectivity for several days.

Technical problems also caused a brief 150-minute outage for those using Starlink. Other short disruptions related to technical difficulties also occurred in China and Pakistan.