This report has been published in partnership with the Guardian.
On a recent Tuesday evening in Kandahar, 17-year-old Marjaneh* sat anxiously behind her computer, waiting for her English class to begin. Since early 2024 she had joined lessons five nights a week via Google Meet.
At 7pm, her laptop screen stayed black. The family’s Wi-Fi had gone dead early that day and no matter how much she tried to refresh and reset the Wifi, it wasn’t working. “These online classes were my only source of hope,” she said in a phone interview. “I thought, when they [Taliban] closed schools at least they wouldn’t cut the internet.”
The Taliban had ordered Afghanistan’s fibre-optic internet to be shut down. The blackout in fiber optic internet, which was first reported Monday, September 15 in Balkh province, has since spread to Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Nimroz, Zabul, Baghlan, Takhar, Kunduz, Badakhshan, Herat, and Parwan.
Many fear the move is the first step toward a total shutdown of Internet access for ordinary Afghans. The restrictions follow a directive from the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, to “prevent immorality.” BBC reports the decision was made two weeks ago at a “governors’ meeting” in Kandahar, which was attended by Akhundzada and governors of Balkh, Kandahar, Nangarhar and Herat.
One source who works for an Afghan telecommunication company in southern Afghanistan, told Zan Times that the Taliban are planning to extend the ban to internet services offered by telecommunication companies. Although internet through mobile services is still available, our journalists on the ground say the signal has weakened.
What is especially chilling is the timing: The move coincides with the fourth anniversary of the Taliban’s education ban for teenage girls. Since then, online schools had become one of the few remaining lifelines for Afghan girls barred from classrooms. For hundreds of thousands of girls and women, it meant the sudden collapse of their only alternative to school and university education and connection to the outside world.
Marjaneh had hoped English would be her ticket to a scholarship abroad, a chance to train as a doctor. Without Wi-Fi, her only option is mobile data – patchy, expensive, and in Kandahar off-limits to girls without a male relative to buy them a SIM card.
In Takhar province, 17-year-old Maryam* faces the same battle. She had been studying coding, graphic design and TOEFL preparation through an online course, since January 2025. When the Wifi was cut, she switched to her phone. “The teacher’s voice kept cutting in and out. For coding you need a stable computer connection; without it, the whole lesson collapses.”
Her family used to pay 1,100 afghani a month for unlimited Wi-Fi. Mobile data costs double, and the package finishes within days. “This week I felt like I did during the fall of Kabul,” she said. “I feel hopeless and all I could do was practice old lessons.”
Since the Taliban closed secondary schools to girls in 2021, and universities in 2022, tens of thousands turned to online education. Private academies offered English, computing, and art. A lecture from “Online Women’s University” says it had enrolled 17,000 students across 15 subjects, many joining from bedrooms.
“It wasn’t just about classes,” said 25-year-old law student Roweida* in Balkh province. “It kept our spirits alive. Every night we met on Google Meet, and hearing each other’s voices gave us hope. When the internet went, it felt like the roof had fallen on us.”
Her lecturer, Seema*, said up to 120 students regularly joined her economics seminars. “A few can still connect from abroad – Pakistan, Iran – but for most inside Afghanistan, it’s over. The damage will be enormous.”
For some families, the cut brought both mother and daughter’s education to a halt. In Herat, 41-year-old Noria* and her 15-year-old daughter were left devastated. “We both cried when the Wi-Fi ban was announced,” she said. “Life without the internet feels like a nightmare. I told my daughter, I’d rather we beg in another country than stay in a place that denies us every chance to learn.”
In Baghlan, Sonia*, 21, who was participating in Zan Times o
nline journalism classes, says she feel hopeless. Her only brother’s salary supports the family. “I bought 5GB of data for 400 afghani, it lasted two weeks. It’s impossible to keep paying for such a high cost.”
Afghanistan’s fibre-optic project began in 2007 with $60m in donor funding, eventually spanning 9,000 kilometres and linking 26 provinces to global networks. By late 2024, nearly 26 million Afghans had access to telecommunications, with fibre offering the fastest and most affordable route.
Now, that infrastructure sits idle under Taliban orders. Mobile internet lingers, but throttled and costly, a luxury in a country where unemployment is soaring and food insecurity affects most households. Etisalat, one of the telecommunication companies active in Afghanistan since 2007, offers 25GB for 999 afghani or 50GB for 2,099 afghani. Afghan Wireless sells 3GB for 250 afghani and 20GB for 999 afghani, while Roshan’s prices start at 95 afghani for just 1GB, with 20GB also costing 999 afghani. For families already stretched, the shift from unlimited home Wi-Fi to metered mobile data doubles costs and sharply reduces access.
For girls like Marjaneh and Maryam, the price is not only economic but existential. “If this continues,” Maryam said, “I won’t graduate. I’ll lose TOEFL, coding, everything.”
*Names have been changed to protect identities. Khadija Haidary is a Zan Times journalist and editor.
