Internet and cell phone services resume in Afghanistan​

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KABUL (Reuters) -Cell phone and internet services were restored in Afghanistan on Wednesday, local residents said, some 48 hours after diplomatic and industry sources said connectivity was abruptly cut on the orders of the Taliban administration. 

The cell phone services of Roshan and Etisalat companies, the foreign-owned biggest providers, came back to life in the late afternoon, residents in Kabul and other cities said. Internet access was restored, according to companies providing the service. 

The ruling Taliban did not provide a reason for the services going down or their restoration, but one Taliban source in the information department said there were technical reasons for the outage and that services would be quickly restored.

Reuters could not verify his information.

He did not respond to a request for comment on whether the Taliban had ordered the outage.

The United Nations had called for connectivity to be reinstated.

The outage on connectivity, which started on Monday, follows a series of hard-line strictures this year, including an internet ban across a swathe of the country’s north, and a ban on playing chess that was imposed for fears it was giving rise to gambling.

The outage had caused chaos, with financial remittances, trade with neighbouring countries and the operations of banks paralysed, while many Afghans were left stranded by cancelled flights.

Online learning by teenage girls and women, an education lifeline after they were banned by the Taliban from high schools and universities, was also brought to a stop. 

(Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar, additional reporting by Hritam Mukherjee and Mushtaq Ali; Writing by Saeed Shah; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle, Alison Williams and Lincoln Feast.)