Taliban blows up Afghanistan's telecom towers
Teliban phonedamentalists
THE TALIBAN IS severely ticking off the citizens of Afghanistan and even some of their own fighters with a bizarre policy that involves attacking the country’s own cell phone towers, leaving 10 per cent of the national population (300,000 people) with no cell phone coverage whatsoever at night.
The wacky funsters have said that the reason they’ve decided to wage phoney war on the towers is that they believe that the U.S. military and NATO can use their phone signals (apparently only at night) to track them down and carry out pinpoint attacks on them.
According to AP, 10 towers have been attacked this month alone, causing almost $2 million in damage.
To protect the towers from any further damage, all four Afghani network providers, Roshan, AWCC, Areeba and Etisalat, have decided that it might just be safer to just switch them off voluntarily, leaving about a quarter of a million angry, networkless Afghanis stuck in the dark with no one to chat to. Except maybe to their wives (Allah forbid!)
The mobile phone industry has seen massive growth in Afghanistan since telecom towers were first set up there in late 2002. In just six years, the country has racked up 5.4 million mobile users and the communications industry has invested over $1 billion in infrastructure for them. A. Sangin, the Afghani telecommunications minister reckons that the country could see another $500 million in investments over the next two years, despite the attacks. Sangin also said that he believed "people will stand up and provide protection for the telecom towers".
The ironic thing is that even some Taliban fighters are irked by the disruptions in cellular coverage they have caused and are actually demanding that the network providers restore full service. In a telephone interview to AP (probably during daylight hours), Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman said " We see that some people are having problems, so we might change the times that the networks are shut down in the coming days".
Of course, the logical and sensible thing for the Taliban to do to avoid being electronically tracked (without significantly peeving the local population) is to simply turn off their phones and take the batteries out, but then again, that just takes all the fun out of blowing things up, doesn’t it? µ
L’Inq
AP
Comments
uSA Prepares for Final Attack
Due to Pakistans Hon President Musharif leaving office soon, USA is stepping Up Violence in Region, Using Afghanistan as Take Off point in Raids against Al Quyedae.Cell Phones, EG: PagePlus which runs only $5 month or less in cost, is popular item. However, whenever theres trouble, cell phones can be LifeLine or at least informant to anyone in entire World. It seems snooping on Night Time Covert Operations is great possiblity, yet with out low cost phone, Not many would invest in landline long distance rates, even to save Government? from forgien attack. So off with Cells at Night seems compromise there.
Blackness in land of Red & Yellow.
Thomas Drashek
Telemarketers may be the root cause
Five times each day—at dawn, at midday, in the late afternoon, just after sunset, and during the evening—the voice of the muezzin speaks; and just like that someone is switching your long-distance service.And the local thing for the newworks to do is...
Lay a mine field round the towers...That way they can keep 24hr service, and any loonies that decide to attack the tower go "booom"
10% is what??
Quick maths lesson for you Inq.10% of 32 million is...?
A) 3 200
B) 32 000
C) 320 000
D) 3 200 000
E) Whatever the hell the Inq writer says it is.
Answers on a postcard to the editor.
Aussie_Torbs
Taliban cell phone service
Just goes to show how these 7th century Islamo-fascists are unfit to run a dog pound, much less a country.The U.S. doesn't need the carriers' cells to track Taliban terrorists. The KH-11/KH-12 satellites work just find for that, and are immune from bombing.
even funnier when....
...they make a few cellphone detonated bombs only to find out they wont work.Great Comment
Just absolutely great finish."Of course, the logical and sensible thing for the Taliban to do to avoid being electronically tracked (without significantly peeving the local population) is to simply turn off their phones and take the batteries out, but then again, that just takes all the fun out of blowing things up, doesn’t it?"
"Just takes all the fun out of blowing things up."
Perfectly dissed in all directions.
Islamo-fascists????
The last time I checked, the country was being run by a puppet government sworn in by Emperor Bush himself, not Islamo-fascists?But hey, if the country is going downhill, let's balme it on Islamo-fascists and NOT the ill conceived vision of Emperor Bush and his cronies...
Off the point
Of course, the article completely misses the point. This has nothing to do with the Talibans being tracked by their cell phones, but with the polpulation tipping the allied forces (or whatever we should call them) !ou see, the allied forces distribute flyers to the population asking them to call for help whenever they see talibans around. That is to prevent schools from being burnt down, young males from being recruited by force (or killed in front of the family when the parents oppose the Taliban's taking them), mines and other traps from being deployed on the roads, etc.
So the population likes to tip off the allied forces, and the Talibans don't like it. So they "ask" the telecom operators to turn off the network so they can work "in peace". Easy.
We droop arty on cellphone mortar spotters.
Canadian troops in Kandahar regularly drop arty on Taliban spotters in the hills. They won't even turn their cellphones on now.When Taliban find a local with a cellphone they take it and dial all the numbers in memory. If someone answers and speaks English they kill him.
Nonsense rehashed
Who's being mocked here? As I hear it they want the phones off for fundamentalist reason, to prevent people from engaging in western corrupt activities, and they added that cellphones are mostly used by NATO people anyway.The fact that the west can use cellphones to track people and pinpoint their bombs is long known by everybody and just means that the taliban is left without use and so don't feel a great need to protect the network.
Seems a bit weak for journos to think up their own daft reason (or deliberately misinterpret statements) and then mock that as if it's the taliban reasoning.
You missed a trick
You could have called themphonedEmentalists.
:-)