Militants torch telecom towers in southern Afghanistan
KABUL, March 2 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Taliban militants have burned two telecom towers in southern Afghanistan after they warned mobile phone companies to shut down their signals at night or face attacks, police said Sunday.
Taliban militants warned the Afghan mobile phone companies last week that their towers and offices will be blown up if the companies do not halt phone signals for 10 hours each night.
The militants’ purported spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said the U.S. and NATO military forces were using mobile signals to track down Taliban fighters and then launch attacks against their hideouts.
“The militants torched a mobile phone tower belonging to Roshan, in the outskirts of Kandahar City,” Nahimullah, a local police officer, said.
The militants also burned a generator and office equipment of the company, he added.
The attack came two days after the militants destroyed a telecom tower belonging to Areeba in the Zherai district of Kandahar Province after their deadline to shut down all telephone signals from dusk to dawn expired Friday.
There are four mobile phone companies in the country that cover almost all corners of poverty-stricken Afghanistan.
They have more than three million subscribers and are the most profitable foreign investments since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
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