Taliban pressures Afghan cell networks into 5PM curfew
By Nilay Patel 
posted March 12th 2008 7:19PM
posted March 12th 2008 7:19PM
After a series of attacks on mobile phone towers, it appears life in Afghanistan has gotten even harder: the four privately-owned Afghan cell companies have all cowed to the Taliban's demands and begun shutting off their networks between 5PM and 7AM every night. The Taliban claims that the companies are aiding Afghan and NATO troops by leaving the networks operational, and has attacked 10 towers in the past few weeks, completely destroying six. We're not sure how big an impact the shutoff has on troops, but there's no denying the effect on Afghan citizens, many of whom rely on mobile phones to contact loved ones and summon medical services. The Afghan government has said it's encouraging the phone companies to resist the Taliban tactics, and that it will "persuade the companies to turn the signals back on again," but it's not clear when that might happen.[Via Textually.org; Image courtesy of Talking Proud]
Any shot of getting the Taliban to turn off T-Mobile? And I wonder if they get better cell coverage in some remote sheep banging village than I get in Manhattan?
Wouldn't the smarter idea have been for the Taliban fighters to...I don't know.... TURN OF THEIR PHONES WHEN THEY DON'T WANT TO BE TRACKED.
We're dealing with a whole new breed of idiot extremist and can't even win because we're too committed elsewhere.
exactly, if THEIR phone is on, it can be tracked, it slows down the Nato forces about 2 seconds. The cell towers just make it easier because they might have somebody in camp disobeying orders and talking on the phone. No network service, no security leaks.
All this does is disconnect the honest citizens from being able to call for help. Probably the real reason, so they can attack citizens that can't communicate to get help. ...or they are REALLY stupid about technology.
Bomb 'em back into the Stone Age!
Wait a minute, the Taliban are living in the Stone Age. I guess that idea won't work.
I'm confused.
Cell phones were invented in teh Stone age?
Pfft. What were all those idiots thinking buying landlines?
sigh....here's an explanation for that whole taleban/taliban thing (taken from the bbc site)..now shuddup about it:
The discrepancy in the spelling of Taleban/Taliban can be explained as follows: the Arabic word Talib (meaning student) contains the vowel called Kasra between the 'l' and the 'b'. In Arabic this is similar to the short 'i' sound and is written as 'i' for many Arabic words such as hijab (veil).
The same vowel can also be pronounced as a short 'e' sound, particularly by Farsi or Pashto speakers. That is why you will often see the world hijab spelt hejab and Taliban as Taleban
mmm, Bruce Sterling? Heavy weather? mmm Structure hits..
Being an Afghan my self and hearing about this first hand from relatives back in the country. It seems that it's the Americans who are destroying these towers so that they can fuel the anger among people to hate the Taliban.
I haven't had contact with my relatives for at least 3months now, because the tower was destroyed by the "Taliban" twice.
Sorry to hear that, but this is the kind of perceptions that the US/NATO must change. Personally I have a hard time believing that the military would rather convince the populous that the Taliban hates cell phone networks than locating large groups of cell phone users/terrorists.
And this is exactly the reason why so few Arabic countries are on friendly terms with the West.
The terrorists do something bad, and all the people convince themselves that the terrorists are great and it's the US/NATO/Israel/Whoever that are actually the bad guys and did it.
Definitely not the case....
1) Given the high level of part-time employment in the Taleban by many local law enforcement in Afghanistan, it was highly likely that the insurgents were dressed in military/police uniforms when they blew up the tower. That's what starts rumours like this.
2) Local law enforcement, Afghan National Army (ANA), Afghan Nation Police (ANP), etc. all use cellphones quite often instead of secure voice radios or even unsecure VHF. Destroying the cell towers was simply a logical enemy action against one of the Afghan security appartus' centres of gravity. No comms, no ops. Nobody hunting them down in the hills. It's that simple.
3) Maybe they just wanted to harrass and threaten the locals....I hear they are mean like that.
No, see, this is really ironic. It's not that they don't know that turning off the cellphones will eliminate the insecurity, it's that they don't have enough control over their personnel to make them actually stop sms'ing their BFF's during the 3 AM camp patrol. Basically, the Taliban is demonstrating their failure as leaders with these claims.
And yes, the US military has the capability to pick up cell traffic via satellites, as well as the ability to decrypt satphone conversations. This is pretty common knowledge.
So what will Afghans do if they want to call Hillary at 3:00 AM?
Next thing on agenda: Use planes to crash everything back into medieval times.
And after that: Nuclear bring everyone into the 1400s with us.
Ah, the irony.
Anyone heard of SAT-COM?
durka durka jihad jihad...
So I am not sure of the source's credibility on this one, but I am currently in Kabul. It is 6:32pm and I just talked on the phone for 15 minutes. Phone service sucks here, always has, probably always will but it is still on. Using AWCC and Roshan no problems.
This story is not accurate. I am living/working here now and I used my cell phone 15 min ago. The time is 1936 local or 7:36pm for you non military types. Yes the ignorant taliban have attacked cell phone towers but they have not forced the cell phone companies to stop cell phone use.
Nothing a 50.cal and a night-scope couldn't fix!
From Afghanistan: We use satellite, radio, cell phones, and anything else available to communicate. But I suspect that we (the US/Int'l forces) will force the hand of the cell companies since we are a huge customer base for them and probably the only reason they are operating in the black.
After all, we're with the government, we're here to help!!