In late September, the Taliban regime imposed a nationwide internet blackout. A fortnight earlier, it had imposed a ban on fiber-optic internet access across five provinces in northern Afghanistan. Taliban officials said the move was aimed at curbing “immoral activities.” However, in effect, it silenced dissent, disrupted communications, and deepened Afghanistan’s economic isolation.
This blackout mirrors a global pattern in which governments restrict connectivity to suppress information flows. Nearly 200 shutdowns were recorded annually in recent years, often linked to protests, elections, or conflict. Countries such as Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kazakhstan have all imposed politically motivated shutdowns.
Yet Afghanistan’s case is distinct: its economy, already weakened by sanctions and isolation, depends heavily on limited digital infrastructure. Cutting that access amounts to an act of economic self-sabotage. Online businesses, banks, and education were immediately affected, highlighting the broader crisis that a future shutdown could cause in a nation where the digital window is a sole hope.
A Shock to the Private Sector
The internet cut sent shockwaves through Afghanistan’s fragile private sector, halting transactions and inflicting millions in losses within days. Small businesses saw operations slashed and costs surge. From Facebook-based clothing shops to WhatsApp-driven delivery services, connectivity was the invisible infrastructure holding the marketplace together. Afghan business-to-customer (B2C) platforms like Aseel — where artisans, mostly women, sold handmade goods globally — went dark, erasing vital income streams.
The blackout disrupted trade logistics and fuel markets, driving up prices as traders exploited the lack of oversight. Within 48 hours, the price of diesel rose to 77 Afghanis per liter and liquefied gas to 63 per kilogram, forcing bakeries and transporters to raise costs as well. As Khan Jan Alokozai, vice president of the Afghan Chamber of Commerce, warned, “80% of business is conducted online — do not widen the gap between the people and the government any further.”
For Afghan freelancers, the effect was catastrophic. Many had built relationships with clients abroad to earn in stable currencies. When the internet went off, so did their contracts. Payments froze, reputations suffered, and a generation of young professionals lost their primary source of income.
Banking Paralysis
The blackout also crippled Afghanistan’s banking system. Online transactions failed, ATMs went offline, and remittance channels froze, leaving millions without access to funds both inside the country and abroad. Before the shutdown, a single bank processed as much as $50,000 a day in remittances. With communication networks down, even informal money-transfer services collapsed.
Hospitals in Pakistan delayed surgeries because Afghan families could not wire payments, revealing how the disruption extended beyond finance to healthcare. Economists warned that the blackout eroded public trust in banks, raised costs, and risked triggering deposit withdrawals that could strain liquidity in an already fragile sector. It also undermined government revenue collection and customs operations, as online systems for taxation and import monitoring went dark.
According to Netblocks’ Cost of Shutdown Tool, nationwide internet restrictions can drain 0.5–1 percent of GDP per day. With Afghanistan’s economy valued at roughly $16 billion, each day of disconnection may have cost between $22 million and $44 million.
Women and Students Disconnected
The blackout disproportionately harmed Afghan women. With bans on their physical presence at most workplaces and universities, the internet has become their only economic refuge. Thousands operated online boutiques, tutoring services, and marketing firms from home. Shutting down Wi-Fi erased these livelihoods, stripping women of one of their last sources of independence. The decision also reflected a broader political goal: to restrict women’s participation and close digital spaces where youth once expressed themselves freely.
The impact on education has been equally severe. With girls barred from attending secondary school and universities, online learning was their only chance to continue studying. Platforms such as SolaTeach, which I have founded to provide free English and professional-skills training, became lifelines for students across the country. During the shutdown, many could not access classes or afford expensive 3G data. As one student explained, “I can’t afford mobile packages — my learning has stopped completely.”
“Shutting down the internet is the final step toward backwardness, ignorance, and destruction,” one Afghan woman said in a video message to DW. Another called it “a direct attack on the dignity, freedom, and future of a nation.”
A Signal to Investors
The blackout also sent a damaging message to potential investors and aid partners. Reliability of digital infrastructure is essential for any modern economy. If internet access can be severed without warning, how can businesses operate or humanitarian agencies coordinate? As economist Mir Shekab Mir noted, fiber cuts destroy Afghanistan’s credibility in regional markets and make trade partnerships even less likely.
The Jerusalem Post compared Afghanistan’s blackout to the isolationist tactics of North Korea, a chilling parallel for a country already struggling with pariah status. Each shutdown increases Afghanistan’s risk profile and reinforces its economic quarantine.
The Cost of Self-Isolation
Beyond its social and political consequences, the Taliban’s policy has also weakened their own governance capacity. Public offices rely on digital systems for payroll, customs, and coordination between provinces. For nearly 48 hours, the shutdown disrupted digital operations across ministries, banks, and customs offices, halting revenue collection, delaying payrolls, and paralyzing data reporting between provinces. Even after connectivity was partially restored, many administrative systems remained unstable, revealing how dependent basic state functions have become on digital networks.
Unlike resource-rich states such as Iran or Myanmar, Afghanistan has no industrial base or export cushion. Its fragile digital economy was one of the few remaining bridges to global trade and education. By severing that link, even temporarily, the Taliban weakened their own administrative capacity and deepened the country’s economic isolation.
Afghanistan’s blackout functions as a silent, self-inflicted sanction. In seeking control, the Taliban have severed the channels of knowledge, commerce, and opportunity that kept the country connected to the world. Connectivity is not a luxury, it is infrastructure as vital as electricity or water. Without it, Afghanistan risks accelerating its descent into deeper isolation and economic collapse.