For the third day, Afghanistan is grappling with a nationwide internet shutdown, plunging millions of its citizens into deeper anxiety and uncertainty. This prolonged outage intensifies the sense of isolation already prevalent under the country’s four-year-old government.
Since Monday evening, when the blackout began, communication for everyday Afghans—both internally and with the outside world—has become virtually impossible, as reported by various internet monitoring groups like NetBlocks. Essential services are crippled: banking operations have ceased, flights are grounded, and even UN agencies, among the few international bodies still active in Afghanistan, report severe difficulties in delivering crucial aid.
The Afghan government, under Taliban rule since 2021, has remained silent on the issue. A diplomatic source, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive restrictions, indicated that the internet shutdown was ordered by Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, to curb the spread of ‘vice.’ Both this official and another from the Afghan Foreign Ministry reported that the blackout is expected to last ‘until further notice.’
Since regaining power after the U.S.-backed government collapsed, the Taliban administration has progressively isolated Afghanistan. This includes prohibiting girls from education past the sixth grade and imposing extensive restrictions on personal liberties and communication, citing religious reasons.
Such a prolonged, country-wide telecommunications shutdown is an uncommon occurrence, even for authoritarian regimes. While Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad imposed a similar, almost complete blackout at the outset of the Syrian revolution in 2012, most governments typically restrict internet disruptions to particular areas and for shorter durations.
Humanitarian efforts are severely impacted; cash transfers and aid distribution to vulnerable communities beyond Kabul, the capital, have almost entirely ceased due to a two-day flight embargo. A UN official in Kabul, speaking anonymously due to security concerns, confirmed that UN personnel cannot reach colleagues in other Afghan regions, including Afghan women who are barred from UN premises.
Communication with UN offices in major Afghan cities like Jalalabad, Kandahar, and Herat is now restricted to satellite phones within UN compounds. These aid workers were already stretched thin, dealing with the fallout from a devastating 6.0-magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan that claimed over 1,400 lives in late August, and managing the arrival of more than a million Afghan refugees from Iran across the western border.
In response, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Tuesday urgently appealed to the Taliban to immediately restore internet and telecommunications, emphasizing the country’s struggling economy and persistent humanitarian emergencies.