Overview

• AFP journalists reported mobile signals resuming in Kabul and several provinces, with residents celebrating the partial return of service after roughly 48 hours offline.
• Taliban authorities had severed fiber‑optic links and degraded mobile networks, triggering a near‑total blackout that NetBlocks measured at below 1% connectivity.
• Airport officials confirmed all flights at Kabul International Airport were canceled during the outage as communications systems failed.
• UN agencies and rights groups condemned the shutdown and said it crippled humanitarian operations, banking, remittances and online education, with staff relying on limited satellite and radio links.
• Ahead of the blackout, Taliban officials framed the cuts as a push to curb “vices” and floated an unspecified internal network, and authorities have offered no clear explanation or plan despite the reported restoration.