Taliban Burn Down Afghan Phone Tower

Gunmen have burnt down a base station operated by MTN in Afghanistan's Kunar province. Eng Mia Jan, head of MTN in Kunar province told reporters that armed men attacked the four men working on the site and then set fire to the site.

Some 4,000 liters of fuel for their generator at the site which was disposed of. When the staff and locals tried to put the fire out, the armed men - presumed to be Taliban insurgents from Pakistan's tribal areas repelled them.

Kunar is a tiny and sparsely populated province embedded in the Hindu Kush mountain range, and as such is heavily mountainous and forested. Osama bin Laden has often been rumoured to be in the province, or close by. In an intensive military operation in summer 2005, called Operation Red Wing, American forces undertook a massive hunt for bin Laden and other senior Al-Qaeda leaders.

Taliban attacks on telecom towers have previously forced the mobile network operators to shut down their service across southern Afghanistan at night - although this lead to a backlash from the populace who rely on their mobile phones in a country with few landline phones.

All four networks have suffered damage to their towers this year, although the attacks seem to be reducing as the insurgents themselves find mobile phones useful.

Posted to the site on 29th July 2008