Taliban Blows up Cell Phone Towers - Discovers They Can’t Communicate
Yahoo
By Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer
Taliban blows up cell phone towers - finds out they don’t have service - demands service be restored.
Taliban attacks on telecom towers have prompted cell phone companies to shut down service across southern Afghanistan at night, angering a quarter million customers who have no other telephones.
Even some Taliban fighters now regret the disruptions and are demanding that service be restored by the companies.
But the cutoff is proving extremely unpopular among Afghan citizens. Even some Taliban fighters are asking that the towers be switched back on, said Afghanistan’s telecommunications minister, A. Sangin.
That dissenting view shows how decisions made by the top-ranking Taliban leadership can have negative consequences for lower-ranking fighters in the field, the minister said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid hinted in a telephone interview that the group could change its tactics.
Sangin said the Taliban’s stated reason for wanting the networks shut down — because the U.S. and NATO can track militants’ movements — doesn’t make sense, because the fighters could simply turn their phones off or remove the batteries. He said the military has other ways to track the militants.
