Internet out in Syria

Syria is experiencing an Internet outage similar to a two-day blackout late last fall, according to companies that monitor online traffic around the world.

Jim Cowie, the chief technology officer at Renesys, said his firm saw Syria's networks go offline abruptly at 6:25 p.m. UTC (2:25 p.m. EDT) on Tuesday.

Google Inc. also indicated that its services were inaccessible in Syria for more than three hours as of 6:00 p.m. EDT. Syrian authorities have cut phone and Internet service in select areas in the past to disrupt rebel communications when regime forces were conducting major operations. Such widespread outages, however, have been rare.