- Mobile signals, WiFi returns through the provinces, notably Kandahar, Herat.
- The Afghans celebrate in the Kabul streets with candies, balloons and prayers.
- The UN urges the Taliban to ensure uninterrupted access to Internet services.
Mobile and internet networks were restored through Afghanistan on Wednesday 48 hours after the Taliban authorities closed telecommunications.
Confusion seized the South Asian country on Monday evening when the mobile and internet telephone service fell without warning, freezing businesses and cutting Afghans from the rest of the world.
The massive electricity failure occurred for weeks after the government began to cut high speed internet connections with certain provinces to prevent “immorality”, on the orders of the supreme chief Hibatullah Akhundzada.
AFP Journalists reported on Wednesday that mobile phone signals and WiFi had returned to the provinces across the country, including Kandahar in the South, Khost in the East, the center of Ghazni and Herat in the west.
The Taliban government has not yet commented on the closure of telecommunications.
Wednesday evening, hundreds of Afghans flocked to the streets of the Kabul capital, passing the word that the Internet was back.
“It’s like Eid Al-Adha; it’s like preparing to go for prayer,” said Sohrab Ahmadi, 26, a delivery man.
“We are very happy at the bottom of our hearts.”
After days of tension, the Afghans celebrated by buying candies and balloons, while the drivers hid their horns, the phones rushed to their ears.
“The city is alive again,” said Mohammad Tawab Farooqi, restaurant director in the city AFP.
Companies, airports, closed banks
Netblocks, a surveillance organization that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance, said the power failure “appears in accordance with the intentional disconnection of the service”.
He said connectivity has slowed down to 1% of ordinary levels.
A government official warned AFP A few minutes before the stop on Monday evening, the fiber optic network would be cut, affecting mobile phone services, “until further notice”.
There were generalized closures of companies, airports and markets, while banks and post offices could not operate.
The Afghans could not contact themselves in or outside the country, and many families prevented their children from going to school during uncertainty.
Those who live in Herat and Kandahar went to border cities to catch signals from neighboring Iran and Pakistan.
The United Nations said on Tuesday that the closure “had left Afghanistan almost completely cut in the outside world” and called on the authorities to restore access.
Internet connections have been extremely slow or intermittent in recent weeks.
On September 16, when the first Internet services were cut for the first time in the northern provinces, Balkh’s provincial spokesperson, Attaullah Zaid, said the ban was commanded by the Taliban chief.
“This measure has been taken to prevent vice, and alternative options will be implemented across the country to meet connectivity needs,” he wrote on social networks.
“Recent studies in Afghanistan have revealed that Internet applications have seriously affected the current, economic, cultural and religious foundations of society,” he said.
