reuters: Taliban Leader Bans Use of Internet
Taliban ruler Mullah Mohammed Omar has officially banned internet use in Afghanistan. The ban extends to international and domestic aid organizations but apparently not to the senior Taliban leaders, who will still be able to download all the porn they want.
Mullah Omar’s edict said the only Internet connection in Afghanistan would be in the southern city of Kandahar, where most of the senior Taliban leaders are based. Aid groups working in Afghanistan depend heavily on the Internet to communicate with each other and with their headquarters. The country has been devastated by decades of war and natural disasters.It wasn’t clear how the edict would be enforced, but Mullah Omar said enforcement would be the job of the Taliban’s ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.
Most of Afghanistan’s infrastructure has been destroyed in more than two decades of war and there are few telephone lines inside the country and almost none to the outside world. Most of the many foreign aid organizations providing basic services to the country depend on satellite telephones.