Contracts have been signed to land two submarine cables in Iraq.

On August 12, Iraq’s Minister of Communications Hiyam Al-Yasiri announced that the country would see its fifth submarine cable landed at Al-Faw, a coastal port on the Persian Gulf.

Details about the cable – its name, its other cable landing stations, and its length – were not disclosed.

An agreement was signed between the General Company for Communications and Informatics – a division of Iraq’s Ministry of Communications – and Emirati company Breeze Investments.

Information about the latter is sparse.

The Minister stated that the government had also given approval to Breeze to establish a land network across the Iraqi corridor, which is intended to facilitate the attractiveness of the country as a hub for data traffic.

Two weeks later, on August 27, the minister announced that Iraq would land its sixth submarine cable in Al-Faw at the Alfa cable landing station. The cable, to be operated by Bahraini telco Batelco, is set to land in Iraq by late 2026 or early 2027.

Batelco-owner Beyon recently announced the Khaleej North submarine cable extension project, an 800-kilometer submarine cable system that will further expand the in-development Al Khaleej. The Al Khaleej cable system itself is a branch of the SeaMeWe-6 cable, which is due to go live next year.

Batelco is a subsidiary of the Beyon Group, a Bahraini conglomerate specializing in tech.

Beyon also has data center interests – in November 2024, Batelco signed an MoU with Qareeb Data Centers to develop a data center in Manama, Bahrain, and in February, Beyon signed an agreement to use Oracle for its sovereign cloud services

All of Iraq’s current subsea connections – 2Africa, Falcon, Gulf Bridge International Cable System/Middle East North Africa Cable System, and the forthcoming Fiber in Gulf – land in Al-Faw.