In August 2021, the United States-backed Afghan government collapsed, and the Taliban re-took control of the country as U.S. military forces withdrew from Afghanistan. As of 31 August 2021, the military withdrawal is complete, and the nearly twenty-year American occupation of the country has ended. While touted as an “extraordinary success” by President Biden himself, the not-so-peaceful transfer of power has many around the world fearful of the Taliban’s imminent crackdown on civil liberties and human rights.
A central feature enabling the Taliban’s ability to control and curb the freedom of Afghans lies in the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, which was largely financed by the U.S. and its NATO allies. For the twenty years under U.S. occupation, Afghans were permitted free access to the world wide web. Afghanistan rebuilt its physical telecom infrastructure after years of war, such that the network became largely reliant on mobile broadband and mobile phone penetration reached 80%. According to InfraNav analysis, approximately 45% of Afghans now live within 5km of a fiber optic cable, offering the possibility for high-speed broadband connection. Afghanistan also has international terrestrial fiber connections to all the country’s neighbors, except China.
Unlike the previous Taliban regime (which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to the U.S. occupation in 2001), today’s Taliban is tech savvy— embracing, rather than rejecting, modern technology and all its power. As insurgents in occupied Afghanistan, they leveraged their U.S.-enabled internet access to spread propaganda and keep tabs on those under their control. These tactics helped to ease their recent take-over of the country when a power vacuum was imminent, and it is likely they will now scale them to the national level to secure their control over the territory. That the “new” Taliban has knowledge of social media and messaging applications has stoked fear that Afghans will be targeted for their internet presence as the Taliban leverages the power of the internet to hunt and target political dissidents.
In August 2021, Taliban forces met with the Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority (ATRA), seemingly to assert their power over the country’s telecommunications assets. The Afghan Ministry of Communications, through its subsidiaries Afghan Telecom and Afghan Wireless, owns and operates over 2,500 kilometers of live fiber throughout the country. In October, the new ATRA announced that all telecom sites in the country which had been damaged after the U.S.-backed government collapsed have been restored and coverage expanded to underserved areas. These reports have not been independently verified. It remains to be seen whether planned fiber routes, such as Asia Consultancy Group (ACG)’s high-capacity National Optical Transport Network, will be allowed to go ahead under the new government. The mobile giant MTN, which holds a leading 40% market share over Afghan wireless broadband, has already accelerated its plans to sell its assets and exit the market due to the transfer of power; however, the ATRA has also prohibited telcos from removing or relocating their infrastructure on security grounds.
Taliban control over existing fiber optic routes could allow for internet blackouts— similar to the one they already implemented in Panjshir, the last hold-out province to fall. However, the Taliban still does not have the sophistication necessary to censor their new subjects without utilizing the blunt blackout approach which remains counter to their interest. Similar to cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, terminating or blocking internet connection to resistant regions would also preclude the Taliban from using the Internet to spread propaganda or target dissidents in those regions.
The internet is powerful. It can be a great source of good, enabling digital transformations which better entire societies and the people living in them; but it can also be nefariously powerful. The Taliban, with repressive ideas about human rights and civil liberty, has leveraged the power of the internet to re-take control of a country of over 35 million people. The world will watch with bated breath as they take their technological prowess and begin to govern.