{"id":168859,"date":"2025-09-29T20:13:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T20:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/168859\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T20:13:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T20:13:08","slug":"afghanistan-hit-by-internet-blackout-as-taliban-cuts-fibre-optic-cables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/168859\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan hit by internet blackout as Taliban cuts fibre optic cables"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flights from Kabul airport have also been disrupted, according to reports.<\/p>\n

Several people in Kabul have told the BBC that their fibre-optic internet stopped working towards the end of the working day, around17:00 local time (12:30 GMT)<\/p>\n

Because of this, it is understood many people will not notice the impact until Tuesday morning, when banking services and other businesses are due to resume.<\/p>\n

Fibre-optic cables transfer data super fast, and are used for much of the world’s internet.<\/p>\n

In a post on social network Mastodon.social, external<\/a>, Netblocks said:<\/p>\n

“Afghanistan is now in the midst of a total internet blackout as Taliban authorities move to implement morality measures, with multiple networks disconnected through the morning in a stepwise manner; telephone services are currently also impacted”.<\/p>\n

For weeks internet users in several Afghan provinces have been complaining about either slow internet access or no connectivity. <\/p>\n

The Taliban earlier said an alternative route for internet access would be created, without giving any details. <\/p>\n

Business leaders at the time warned that if the internet ban continued their activities would be seriously hit.<\/p>\n

Hamid Haidari, former editor-in-chief of Afghan news channel 1TV, said after the shutdown that “loneliness enveloped the entire country.”<\/p>\n

“Afghanistan has now officially taken first place in the competition with North Korea for [internet] disconnection” he said on X, external<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flights from Kabul airport have also been disrupted, according to reports. Several people in Kabul have told the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1638,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-168859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}