Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The Taliban now run the Afghan cell phone companies at night…

By Sanjoy Majumder
BBC News, Kabul
Wednesday, 12 March 2008

Afghan mobile phone companies have begun switching off their signals at night in parts of the restive south after several attacks by the Taleban.

Ten mobile phone masts were attacked in recent weeks, the latest on Tuesday night, the Afghan government says.

Last month the Taleban threatened the companies, alleging that the networks were being used by Afghan and Nato troops to target them.

Mobile phones are the only form of communication for many Afghans.

They were introduced to the country in 2001, after the fall of the Taleban.

The latest attack took place on Tuesday night, when a mobile phone tower was set on fire in the western province of Herat.

Since a threat by the Taleban last month to target the towers unless the phone companies switched off their signals at night, 10 such facilities have been attacked, six of them completely destroyed.

Government ‘concern’

Afghanistan has four mobile phone companies, all privately owned, and they now appear to have begun complying.

In two southern provinces, Zabul and Ghazni, the phone networks have stopped working between five in the evening and seven in the morning.

The deputy police chief in Ghazni, Mohammad Zaman, said this was the result of the Taleban’s warning.

“We will persuade the companies to turn the signals back on again,” he said.

Similar reports have come in from several districts in four other southern provinces, including Kandahar and Helmand, which are both Taleban strongholds.

The phone companies have refused to speak on the issue but a spokesman for the telecommunications ministry, Abdul Hadi Hadi, told the BBC that the government had asked them to resist the Taleban pressure.

“We are concerned because the mobile phone companies had promised us that they would not bow before the Taleban demand,” Mr Hadi said.

Mobile phones are the only way most Afghans are able to communicate, especially in remote areas where they are used to summon medical help or contact relatives.

Many Afghans living in the affected areas are now complaining that they are being inconvenienced and are also feeling insecure.

Telecom tower burned in west Afghanistan

By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press
Wed Mar 12, 6:23 AM ET

KABUL, Afghanistan - A telecommunications tower was set ablaze in western Afghanistan, a police official said Wednesday, the latest such attack since insurgents warned phone companies to shut down the towers at night.

Five militants set fire to the generator, fuel tank and antenna of the tower Tuesday night in the Obe district of Herat province, said Raouf Ahmadi, a regional police spokesman. The tower belonged to the Areeba company.

The Taliban believe U.S. and other foreign troops are using mobile phone signals to track insurgents and launch attacks against them. A Taliban spokesman issued a threat last month saying militants would blow up towers across Afghanistan if telecom companies did not switch off their signals at night.

At least two other Areeba towers have been hit, as well as three more owned by the Roshan company. Most attacks have been in the insurgency-plagued southern provinces.

It was not clear if the arsonists in the Herat attack were linked to Taliban fighters.

Communications experts say the U.S. military can use satellites and other means to pick up mobile phone signals. The Taliban rely on mobile phones to communicate and coordinate their operations.

Mobile phones were introduced in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. They have become the principal means of communication and one of the fastest-growing and most profitable sectors in the country’s economy.