For a third agonizing day, Afghanistan remains plunged into a nationwide internet blackout. This prolonged digital silence is intensifying a pervasive sense of dread and uncertainty among millions of Afghans, who already feel increasingly cut off under the four-year rule of the current government.
Since Monday evening, the comprehensive outage has made communication within Afghanistan and with the outside world virtually impossible, as confirmed by internet monitoring groups like NetBlocks. The consequences are dire: banking operations have ceased, air travel is grounded, and even United Nations agencies, among the few international bodies still active in the country, report severe impediments to aid distribution.
The Taliban-led Afghan government, which has been in power since 2021, has remained silent regarding the outage. A diplomatic source, speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the restrictions, indicated that the Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, initiated the blackout to curb the spread of “vice.” Both this official and an Afghan Foreign Ministry representative were informed that the internet services would remain suspended “until further notice.”
Since regaining control following the collapse of the U.S.-backed government, the Taliban administration has systematically increased Afghanistan’s isolation. Measures such as prohibiting girls’ education past the sixth grade and imposing sweeping restrictions on personal freedoms and communication, all justified on religious grounds, have become commonplace.
Such an extensive, multi-day nationwide telecommunications shutdown is highly unusual, even for authoritarian regimes. While leaders like Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad imposed a similar blackout during the early days of the Syrian revolution in 2012, most governments typically restrict internet access to specific areas or for shorter durations.
Critical cash transfers and humanitarian aid intended for vulnerable populations beyond Kabul, the capital, have effectively ceased. This is primarily due to a two-day flight suspension, confirmed by an aid worker in Kabul who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons. Furthermore, UN personnel in Kabul are unable to reach their colleagues in other Afghan provinces, including female Afghan staff who are barred from entering UN facilities.
This crisis compounds existing humanitarian challenges. Aid organizations were already stretched thin, responding to a devastating 6.0-magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan in late August, which claimed over 1,400 lives, and managing the arrival of more than a million Afghan refugees crossing the western border from Iran.
In response, the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Tuesday urgently appealed to the Taliban to immediately restore internet and telecommunications services, emphasizing the country’s fragile economy and escalating humanitarian emergencies.