{"id":179397,"date":"2025-09-30T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179397\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T06:30:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:30:12","slug":"taliban-imposes-communication-shutdown-in-afghanistan-after-severing-fibre-optic-connections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/179397\/","title":{"rendered":"Taliban imposes communication shutdown in Afghanistan after severing fibre optic connections"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have imposed a nationwide shutdown of communications, weeks after they began severing fibre optic connections to prevent “vice”.<\/p>\n

Connectivity was operating at less than 1 per cent of its normal levels on Monday, according to internet watchdog Netblocks, which called it a “comprehensive, or total blackout”.<\/p>\n

In the minutes before it happened, a government official told news agency AFP the shutdown would last “until further notice”.<\/p>\n

“It is going to be cut, it will happen gradually tonight, there are eight to nine thousand telecommunications pillars it will shut down,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n

“There isn’t any other way or system to communicate \u2026 the banking sector, customs, everything across the country will be affected.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

AFP lost all contact with its bureau in the capital, Kabul. (Reuters: Ali Khara)<\/p>\n

AFP lost all contact with its bureau in the capital, Kabul, at around 5:45 pm, local time.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities began the crackdown on access earlier this month, effectively shutting down high-speed internet in several regions.<\/p>\n

Telephone services are often routed over the internet, sharing the same fibre lines, especially in countries with limited telecoms infrastructure.<\/p>\n

“A nationwide telecoms blackout is now in effect,” said Netblocks, a watchdog organisation that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance, adding it “appears consistent with the intentional disconnection of service”.<\/p>\n

“It may turn out that disconnecting internet access while keeping phone service available will take some trial and error.”<\/p>\n

The Taliban has banned the sound of women’s voices in Afghanistan. But these women want to be heard<\/a><\/p>\n

Women living under a regime which banned them from using their voice in public risk punishment to tell the world the brutal, bleak truth of life in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Over the past weeks, internet connections have been extremely slow or intermittent.<\/p>\n

On September 16, Balkh provincial spokesman Attaullah Zaid said fibre optic internet was completely banned in the northern province on the Taliban leader’s orders.<\/p>\n

“This measure was taken to prevent vice, and alternative options will be put in place across the country to meet connectivity needs,” he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n

At the time, AFP correspondents reported the same restrictions in the northern provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar, as well as in Kandahar, Helmand, Nangarhar and Uruzgan in the south.<\/p>\n

\"Soldiers<\/p>\n

Taliban soldiers celebrate on the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul. (Reuters: Ali Khara)<\/p>\n

In 2024, Kabul had touted the 9,350-kilometre fibre optic network \u2014 largely built by former US-backed governments \u2014 as a “priority” to bring the country closer to the rest of the world and lift it out of poverty.<\/p>\n

Since regaining power, the Taliban have instituted numerous restrictions in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law.<\/p>\n

It is the first time since the Taliban government won their insurgency in 2021 that communications have been shut down in the country.<\/p>\n

AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have imposed a nationwide shutdown of communications, weeks after they began severing fibre optic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[20813,64,63,237,38006,84050,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-179397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-afghanistan","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-internet","12":"tag-internet-blackout","13":"tag-taliban","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}