Crystal Dike
Afghanistan woke up in darkness on Tuesday, not from bombs or blackouts, but from silence — a Taliban internet blackout that severed an entire nation from the digital world.
Internet watchdog NetBlocks confirmed a “total internet blackout,” with mobile data, fibre-optic lines, and satellite TV abruptly cut off. By dawn, Kabul’s newsrooms had gone silent, foreign media lost contact with their bureaus, and ordinary Afghans discovered their banking apps, online schools, and businesses had crashed overnight.
“No notice, no reason, only silence,” wrote Hamid Haidari, former editor-in-chief of 1TV. Former lawmaker Mariam Solaimankhil called the muted Afghan voices online “deafening.”
Flights were among the first casualties. Flightradar24 confirmed at least eight departures and arrivals cancelled at Kabul International Airport. Local businesses also reported frozen transactions, with e-commerce and banking systems grinding to a halt. “Loneliness enveloped the entire country,” one Kabul merchant said.
Midway through the crisis, whispers surfaced of deeper motives. The BBC cited diplomatic sources suggesting the Taliban is “filtering” internet use to curb “immoralities.” A government committee in Kabul is reportedly reviewing ways to enforce permanent restrictions. The move comes weeks after fibre-optic connections were quietly severed, signaling a staged plan.
The Taliban internet blackout is hitting ordinary Afghans hardest. A money changer in Takhar said his daughters’ online English lessons vanished overnight: “Their last opportunity to study and stay engaged is now gone.” Another woman, forced out of university classrooms, said the outage destroyed her last chance at remote work. “When I heard that the internet had been cut, the world felt dark to me,” a Kabul student told the BBC.
Since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban have steadily erased public freedoms — banning women from education beyond age 12, removing books by female authors from universities, outlawing the teaching of human rights, and scrapping midwifery training, once a rare professional pathway for women.
Now, with Afghans disconnected from the world, critics warn that this blackout is more than a shutdown — it is a silencing. The Taliban internet blackout may be temporary on paper, but for millions, it feels like the permanent end of their last link to hope.