The Taliban government has poured Afghanistan into digital darkness. Internet watchdog Netblocks On Monday evening, fiber optic networks and the mobile telephone connections were flattened on Monday evening and that there was a ‘total internet-blackout’. The country is practically closed off the outside world. NRC-Correspondent Lisa Dupuy reported that she could no longer send messages from India to people in Afghanistan and that she heard the same from her colleagues.
The measure is part of a campaign against ‘sinful’ practices in the country that has been ruled since August 2021 by the Orthodox Muslims of the Taliban militias. It is the first time in four years that the Taliban focused on the internet, NRC correspondent Dupuy wrote last week, when the ideological leader of the regime, Haibatullah Akhundzada, announced the attack on the means of communication to combat ‘immoral behavior’ of the Afghans. Last year the rulers strengthened control of public life in Afghanistan through the introduction of drastic moral legislation. Girls and women were no longer allowed to go to school. Many followed online lessons. That will probably not be possible soon.
The Orthodox Taliban recaptured in August 2021, after a super -fast campaign, the power they also had in the 90s. In 2001 they were driven away from the capital Kabul by an international force under the American order. That was out of revenge for the attacks of 11 September by Muslim extremists on American goals.
The Taliban have continued their guerrilla battle all this time and managed to conclude an agreement with then President Trump in 2019 on the withdrawal of American troops. It was only under President Joe Biden that the Taliban forced the withdrawal.
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