With the Taliban forced out of their main redoubts in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, mobile phone signals have been on all night for the first time in nearly a year. Around eight months ago Taliban militants ordered phone operators to shut down their networks from dusk to dawn in the provincial capital, also called Kunduz, and surrounding districts.
The move was to prevent villagers from passing information regarding the insurgents' positions to coalition forces. Officials and locals said that the nightly blackout ended earlier this month after Afghan and coalition troops forced the Taliban militants out their two strongholds in the area.
The combined forces encountered little resistance as they swept through Gor Tapa, an area of Kunduz city, and the nearby district of Chardarah, said Abdul Rahman Sayedkheli, the province's head of police.
"Around 100 foreign fighters, including Pakistanis, Chechens and Uzbeks and local Taliban militants fled these areas before our forces arrived," he said. "The Taliban had been active in these two areas for the past three years and besides shutting down phone signals, they were also collecting taxes from the local populace," he said. All four major phone operators were forced to comply with the Taliban's edict after the insurgents drove home their threat by destroying several phone towers across the province.
"We had to shut down our networks during the night to avoid Taliban attacks on our staff and property, but now that the threat is gone we have returned to 24-hour operations," a senior official of Roshan, a leading mobile company, said on condition of anonymity.
A similar overnight blackout has been in force in several districts of the eastern and southern provinces, where the militants are most active, since it was imposed four years ago. When the mobile companies refused, their personnel were killed and their towers destroyed.
Security has deteriorated in the previously peaceful northern region since a push by Nato-led forces drove militants out of the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand in the summer. In the northern province of Kunduz and neighbouring Baghlan, Afghan and Nato forces launched an operation in recent weeks despite the cold. They are bolstered by several hundred fresh US troops deployed to the north last year to help the nearly 5,000 German troops already based in the region.
In Baghlan, a ban on night-time mobile signals is still partially in place, after being imposed by the Taliban early last year. "There is still security threat in some areas," said Abdul Rahman Rahimi, the province's police chief. But two of the four phone companies were currently maintaining their signals through the night, he said.
Access to night-time phone service has not been the only recent improvement in Kunduz daily life. The economy has flourished since the Taliban's departure as people have been able to sell their wares in the provincial capital's markets. People who had abandoned their homes for fear of being bombed by Western troops were also returning, while new shops were opening in the local bazaar of Gor Tapa, including music shops. "People are slowly putting up TV antenna on their roof tops and we can listen to the radio freely," Gul Ahmad, a resident of Gor Tapa, said. The Taliban banned mobile phones for tactical reasons, but they also prohibited recordings, broadcasts and performances of music for being un-Islamic.
"Radio stations now have the freedom and opportunity to broadcast a variety of music and entertainment programmes," Nato said in a statement this week. Broadcasting was previously impossible due to the insurgents' control of "communication assets," it said.
While many residents welcomed the combined forces into their areas, Yaar Mohammad, a resident of Chardarah said he was worried that the Taliban would return once the Afghan and coalition forces leave. "The government forces and foreign troops have come to our area several times in the past, but they left after a while and the Taliban came back," Mohammad said. "So I don't want to celebrate yet."