Syria Internet Down Yet Again

Syria is yet again without access to the global Internet, amidst reports the UN is about to approve a resolution calling for regime change and criticising President Bashar Assad’s aggressive tactics.

Renesys, which monitors Internet usage, said it had been down since 7am GMT, with BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) down and inbound traceroutes failing, whilst DNS servers and government websites were also down.

Google and RIPE NCC, one of the five Regional Internet Registries that provide core Internet infrastructure, said they had also seen a complete outage.

Another outage

This is the second time in two weeks Syrians have been cut off from the Internet. Last time, the government claimed it was doing its best to fix the problem, rejecting suspicions it was behind the outage.

According to a tweet from the state news agency, SANA, the problem is again technical. It claimed there was a fault with a fibre-optic cable.

“Maintenance and repair work is underway to reestablish the Internet and telecommunications across Syria as soon as possible,” said Bakr Bakr, the director-general of Syria’s telecoms firm, according to AP.

The country has experienced numerous Internet outages over the last year, including one in November 2012 and another in July.

Intense fighting continues across the country, with tens of thousands of casualties recorded.

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