Taliban Demands Downtime on Afghanistan Cellphone Networks

faster_manic writes "The Taliban has demanded that cellphone network providers in Afghanistan cease service between the hours of 5pm and 7am each night of the week, as they believe American troops are able to track down Taliban members using their cellphones."

Comments

Re:Isn't it as easy as

[FrostDust]

I remember hearing how the US government is able to turn on and use a cellphone's microphone, even if the phone turned off, in order to listen in on the converstations being held by suspected drug trafficers. I can't imagine it being that impossible for the military's intellegence agencies to ascertain a phone's general location. Short of the user removing the battery, or securing the phone in a faraday cage, shuting down the phone towers seems the easiest way to keep everyone's location hidden at night.

Re:This isn't about being track by their cellphone

[Frosty Piss]

This demand is about proving the Taliban is still relevant to the population of Afghanistan and capable of influencing their lives.

There is a perception that these are a few dozen or even a hundred guys up in the mountains in caves. But outside the major cities, in the smaller towns, and most of the rural areas, these extremists still wield a lot of power. And, if you watch the news, you know that they still send people into crowded shopping areas to blow themselves and those around them, to where ever it is that martyrs go.

The Taliban is still to this day an active and dangerous group intent on forcing their extreme views on the world. In that respect, they have a lot in common with GWB and his junta.

Hate

[eulernet]

Mod me down, but I'm always surprised by the amount of hate US has against the talibans.

Come on, the talibans try to free their country from foreign occupation, and they believe that their cause is right.
They are warriors, not kamikazes that kill innocent people by exploding themselves.
In France, this was called "Resistance".

BTW, what are the US troops doing in Afghanistan after all these years ?

Re:Hate

[tjstork]

Mod me down, but I'm always surprised by the amount of hate US has against the talibans.

Taliban are a bunch of Pakistani trained people that took over Afghanistan after the Russian withdrawal and turned it into a medieval butcher shop. they publicly gunned down people, censored everything, harassed and abused women, destroyed priceless cultural landmarks, drove their people in backwards illiterate oppression, but other than that, I guess they were ok.

We should have nuked Afghanistan.