The Taliban forced mobile phone companies to switch off their networks across Afghanistan's Helmand province Wednesday, as security forces conducted an operation, officials said. Deputy provincial governor Abdul Satar Mirzakwal said insurgents had ordered mobile phone coverage to close as Afghan and foreign security forces tackled a militant stronghold.
Mobile phones are the primary means of communication in areas of rural Afghanistan such as southern Helmand province. "The closure of the mobile phones is because of Taliban threats," Mirzakwal said, adding that the government had given the service providers until midnight Wednesday to reopen connections or "be punished."
Mirzakwal claimed the move came as Afghan security forces helped by Nato-led troops had pushed the Taliban and other insurgents from Dishu district and its central bazaar, a hub for drug traffickers, after days of operations. An ISAF spokesman in Kabul could not immediately give any details on operations in Dishu but said: "It would appear that the mobile phone coverage has been shut down.
"Our reports suggest the Taliban has something to do with it." MTN, one of Afghanistan's four mobile phone companies, told AFP that the service disruption was due to insurgent threats. "We do close our operations from time to time. It has been because of threats by anti-government armed forces," Mohammad Naser Nasery, a company executive, told AFP.
"We do obey for the sake of our personal and facilities security. Today's closure has been one of those threats." Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said a "fierce operation" was under way in Dishu but denied that the insurgents had ordered the phone shutdown. He claimed that it had been ordered by the government "to hide their defeat in the operation."
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