Following this week’s nationwide communications blackout, the Taliban has denied implementing a nationwide internet ban.
Taliban officials claimed that the outages were brought on by outdated fiber-optic cables that needed to be replaced in a statement released to Pakistani journalists on a chat group on Wednesday.
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Nothing can rival the rumors that the internet has been banned, they said in a three-line statement.
The hardline Islamic government made its first public statement on the subject on Monday following the start of communications failures, which also affected phone services.
The nation of 43 million people is currently experiencing a “total internet blackout,” according to Netblocks, a global internet watchdog.
The Taliban claim no role in the internet closure, but the organization has previously curbed access to it in some of its regions as a result of leader Haibatullah Akhunzada’s decree to combat alleged immorality.
The northern province’s fibre-optic internet was completely banned, according to a spokesperson for the Balkh provincial government on September 16.
In addition, restrictions were reported last month in Helmand, Kandahar, and Nangarhar, both in northern Badakhshan and Takhar, and in southern Helmand, Kandahar, and Nangarhar, respectively.
Eight to nine thousand fiber-optic network pillars, according to an Afghan government official, will be shut down “until further notice” until Monday.
The Taliban has also established a one-week deadline for the suspension of all mobile phone 3G and 4G internet services, according to an article published on TOLOnews.
The blackout has also had an impact on industries like banking, aviation, and commerce, as well as personal communications.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), according to Binta Bello, the agency’s director general, has detained five suspected traffickers and rescued 24 human trafficking victims.
The feat was accomplished when it led a high-powered special operation at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, according to a statement released by NAPTIP’s national press officer, Vincent Adekoye, on Wednesday.
A retired senior uniform officer with one of Nigeria’s top law enforcement organizations, who was allegedly a prominent member of the trafficking syndicate operating in the South West region, was one of the suspect human traffickers detained at the airport, according to the statement.
The Director General’s recent anti-human trafficking efforts and attack onslaught against human trafficking, which targeted recruitment centers, trafficking spots, and routes within Nigeria, were described by the organization as a continuation of the development.
In response to the increased reports of Nigerians being recruited and exploited both domestically and abroad, Bello had ordered a few months ago to increase surveillance and monitoring of all areas of the nation, with particular attention given to motor parks, waterways in the coastal states, and international airports.
Following a tip-off from concerned stakeholders and partners, who received information about the influx of suspected human trafficking victims at Abuja’s international airport and the unhygienic practices of some suspected traffickers.
NAPTIP claimed that the human trafficking activities had been “completely disrupted” after almost six hours of operation.
The victims were traveling to Iraq, Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Afghanistan when they were recruited from Kano, Kastina, Oyo, Ondo, and Rivers States, where they were between the ages of 15 and 26.
Some of the victims were said to be unaware of the location of their intended country of destination, despite the fact that many of them could not communicate in any other language besides their dialect.
They informed my mother that I would be traveling to Europe to work and make money. One of their parents commented, “My parents were happy and they gave me permission to follow them.”
One of the victims, who had promised to bring her father’s falsehood charges against her, staged yet another mild drama at NAPTIP’s headquarters. After the Director General had personally given the victims a series of video clips of some stranded Nigerians and those who were being abused at the destination countries, he had offered them some insight.
While watching the video of those girls who were being abused and beaten by the traffickers, the victim said, “I struggled to hold my emotions.” I won’t go if that’s what awaits me there. Because my father deceived me, I’m really angry with him. My father informed me that his friend works for me at a Baghdad supermarket. It is in Iraq, he didn’t tell me. I am aware that Iraq is currently a bad place to work because of the Iraqi crisis, but I am unaware that Baghdad is there. I appreciate DG and her officers’ rescue, but I still need my passport and want to return to my hometown. The victim, whose father was one of the traffickers arrested, gave in her native dialect as she pleaded for help. “I will definitely make it here rather than suffer in another country,” she said.
Kogi mourns as the boat accident’s death toll rises to 26.
The Director General of NAPTIP, Binta Adamu Bello, who spoke about the development, expressed concern over the continued deception, recruitment, and exploitation of Nigerians through various forms of exploitation.
We were able to detain five suspected members of the trafficking gang, who had been recruiting and facilitating human trafficking to various tension-strengthening nations, particularly in the Middle East, for exploitation, today, which impressed me with the outcome of the operation.
We have decided to turn our attention to the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport because we have observed that these traffickers are finding it difficult to leave their homes. We will continue this raid until this illegal and unpatriotic activity is stopped.
“It shocked me that a father, a retired law enforcement officer in the senior cadre, defrauded his daughter and sold her out in Iraq for exploitation,” he said. This is incredibly unbelievable. All of them will face the law and be thoroughly investigated.
I sincerely thank and appreciate the support of the NAPTIP Director General, the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport Manager, and all the wonderful staff members of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria. I appreciate the assistance of the airport security personnel, immigration officers, airport security personnel, and airline operators.
Islamabad, Pakistan, on September 13, when Shehbaz Sharif arrived at the military hospital in Bannu, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, his stoic expression replaced unmistakable rage.
At least 19 soldiers had died fighting attackers from the armed group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – commonly known as the Pakistan Taliban – in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province that shares a long and contentious border with Afghanistan.
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Flanked by army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir to his left, Sharif delivered a blunt message to the Afghan Taliban, which returned to power in Kabul after the withdrawal of US forces in August 2021, and which he accuses of providing a haven to armed fighters on Afghan soil.
He addressed the media outside the hospital, “Today I want to send a clear message to Afghanistan.” Choose one of two options. If they wish to establish relations with Pakistan with genuine goodwill, sincerity and honesty, we are ready for that. However, we won’t have any influence over the Afghan interim government if they choose to support terrorists.
However, the violence continued. Five more soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device struck their vehicle on September 16 in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which also borders Afghanistan. The provincial capital of Balochistan, Quetta, was the victim of a suicide bombing that blew up on September 30 and injured 32 people.
According to Islamabad-based think tank, the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), the death count in August was particularly high. The institute reported a 74 percent increase in violence in the country since , July.
According to the PICSS Militancy Database, August became the deadliest month in over a decade, surpassing all monthly figures since February 2014, according to the think tank’s report.
An already depressing picture has been made worse by the surge. The year 2024 was one of the deadliest for Pakistan in nearly a decade, with more than 2, 500 casualties of violence in the country recorded. Civilians and security personnel are among the groups at risk, and most attacks have taken place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
Sharif was categorically blaming the rise in murders and violent acts. “Terrorists come from Afghanistan and, together with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), these khawarij join forces to martyr our soldiers, our brothers and sisters, and ordinary citizens”, he said at the hospital.
The TTP has been conducting armed campaigns against Islamabad since it first emerged in 2007 amid the US-led, so-called “war on terror.”
The organization calls for the reversal of the merger of Pakistan’s tribal regions with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, demands the release of its imprisoned members, and enacts strict Islamic law.
The Pakistani government insists the TTP – which is distinct from the Afghan Taliban but ideologically aligned in many respects – operates from Afghan territory. It attributes the organization’s use of the Arabic-derived term “khwarij,” a historical epithet for an extremist sect that labeled other Muslims as “apostates,” to being blamed on Kabul for allowing sanctuary and to using it repeatedly.
However, these accusations have been repeatedly refuted in Kabul. Last month, Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the Taliban government, warned against “provocative” statements and urged cooperation.
He said in a Kabul interview days after Sharif’s statements that Pakistan should take steps to stop these attacks. Islamabad should also share information with Kabul so that we can also work to thwart these threats, he continued.
Border tensions deepen
As a result of a lull earlier this year, high-level delegations from Pakistan visited Kabul and other meetings with Chinese leaders, suggesting that things might be moving forward.
Ishaq Dar, Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, made his first major visit to Kabul since February 2023.
Then, in May, Dar joined his Chinese and Afghan counterparts, Wang Yi and Amir Khan Mutaqqi, for an informal trilateral meeting in Beijing that aimed to renew diplomatic engagement. China offered to expand its presence in the region and act as a mediator between Islamabad and Kabul at the third meeting held in Kabul in August.
The Afghan Taliban have, despite those diplomatic gestures, not taken any serious action against the TTP.
Iftikhar Firdous, cofounder of The Khorasan Diary, a portal that tracks regional security developments, was scathing in his comments. He told Al Jazeera, “In reality, there hasn’t been an Afghan Taliban’s overarching commitment to combat the TTP in Afghanistan, and this is probably never going to happen.”
He called the Afghan Taliban a “grey entity in a world where black and white are no longer distinguishable.”
“I don’t see any end to the TTP while the idea of the Taliban exists. The Pakistani government’s failure to establish a controlled Taliban government in Afghanistan has had negative effects, according to the Peshawar-based analyst. The next big mistake would be to assume that the Taliban’s internal security issues will be resolved by negotiation.
On September 2, 2025, armed groups attacked the Frontier Constabulary (FC) headquarters in Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan. [Ehsan Khattak/Reuters]
Diplomatic outreach falters
During its initial rule in the 1990s, Pakistan was viewed as a protector of the Afghan Taliban. As a defense against India, the Pakistani army sought “strategic depth” in Afghanistan. But the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 altered the dynamic.
While the TTP’s campaign has continued inside Pakistan, Kabul has occasionally cautiously courted ties with New Delhi.
Despite the obvious challenges, Afghani analyst Tameem Bahiss asserts that Pakistan’s long-term security depends on effective cooperation with Afghanistan both bilateral and multilateral.
“Kabul’s reluctance to act decisively against the TTP is rooted in both cultural and ideological considerations. He told Al Jazeera, “The Afghan Taliban are unlikely to use force against a group with whom they have ties not just culturally but also ideologically and historically,” he said.
TTP’s access to more advanced military equipment makes this a problem even more. The group has made use of night-vision devices, quadcopters and heavier weaponry reportedly left behind after international forces withdrew from Afghanistan.
“Deep scars”
The TTP has continued to recruit in Pakistan’s tribal districts, where decades of conflict have eroded support for the state, are more troubling, according to analysts.
Fahad Nabeel, who leads the Islamabad-based research consultancy Geopolitical Insights, said counterinsurgency is only successful in any region with local support.
Between the mid-1900s and the mid-1900s, the Pakistani military’s previous operations against armed groups caused displacement and economic damage, creating a culture of mistrust in the authorities.
Nabeel noted that there is a particular issue with the lack of coordination between the army and federal and provincial authorities.
“Political ownership of military operations is very important, which has been an issue encountered during the early military operations as well. He cited Sharif’s operation, which was announced in June 2024, but it never actually launched, and the recently announced Operation Azm-e-Istehkam, which quickly became contentious due to the lack of clarity surrounding the operation.
According to Bahiss, the tribal belt along the border has endured decades of trauma, with violence from armed groups and repeated Pakistani military operations leaving “deep scars and fostering resentment toward both the Pakistani state and, particularly, the security establishment.”
“These grievances have provided fertile ground for the TTP’s revival, as the group has increasingly framed its narrative around Pashtun disenfranchisement”, the analyst said.
Local grievances, a threat to the nation
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been at odds with one another for many years, but recent actions by other nations, including the US, have complicated the regional dynamics even more.
On September 18, during a visit to the United Kingdom, US President Donald Trump suggested Washington wishes to regain control of Bagram airbase, a strategic facility outside Kabul that was long a linchpin for foreign military operations in Afghanistan.
The foreign ministers of China, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia urged Afghanistan to take “effective, concrete, and verifiable actions” to end armed groups operating on its soil at a UN General Assembly (UNGA) side event in New York six days later.
They warned that the region was in danger of being exposed to ISIL, al-Qaeda, the TTP, and other organizations.
Crucially, the resulting four-country statement – part of a quadripartite process that began in 2017 – also opposed “the reestablishment of military bases” such as Bagram in and around Afghanistan by “the countries responsible for the current situation”, language understood as aimed at the US. The Taliban in Afghanistan, on the other hand, applauded this statement.
The Afghan Taliban’s top priority, according to Abdul Sayed, a researcher in Sweden’s security sector, is establishing a stable government.
“But a further expansion of Pakistan’s policy of cross-border strikes , or the adoption of more punitive measures against the Taliban and the Afghan population are likely to generate increased support for hostile actors, which could risk intensifying the threat of militancy within Pakistan”, he told Al Jazeera.
In recent years, Pakistan has carried out numerous airstrikes against armed groups on Afghan soil, with the most recent instance being in December 2024, when at least 46 people died, mostly civilians.
Islamabad has also implemented an expulsions policy. Since November 2023, Pakistan has been pushing a three-phase campaign to deport millions of Afghans, citing security concerns. The tensions between Kabul and Kabul have grown, and the already fragile humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, which has been worsened by the most recent, devastating earthquake in its eastern region, has grown even more so.
Nabeel argued that Islamabad must work hard to win over regular Afghans while making it clear that anti-Pakistani armed groups cannot operate freely if they want to end the violence.
“Such an approach can allow Pakistan to conduct covert actions against anti-Pakistan militant groups in Afghanistan. However, such actions can only be successful if Pakistani authorities take actions on their own, not by staging cross-border strikes, to combat the structural causes of violence, he claimed.
However, according to Firdous, a security analyst based in Peshawar, there are likely to continue simmering tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan beyond a TTP-related crisis.
“There are perennial problems between the two neighbours which have more to do with existential issues for both countries, and cross-border terrorism happens to be an unresolved variable from the baggage of history”, he said.
In spite of the president’s choice to partially retaliate by dissolving the government, hundreds of young protesters in Madagascar’s capital took to the streets again with the help of tear gas.
Late on Monday, Andry Rajoelina, president of the state, made a statement on state television that he wanted to start a dialogue with young people who want access to clean water and power lines, as well as offer assistance for looting-stricken businesses.
Some of the protest movement’s organizers wrote a message on the Facebook page of the protest movement demanding an apology from him, the now-dismissed prime minister, and the dismissal of Antananarivo, the capital’s administrator.
Others went even further, waving placards with the words “Rojoelina out, we need water, we need electricity.”
The protests, which started last week and are now in their fourth day, resulted in at least 22 deaths and more than 100 injuries, according to the UN.
The UN’s reported casualty figures have been refuted by the ministry of foreign affairs, claiming that they were based on rumors or misinformation and did not originate from competent national authorities.
Protesters marched on Tuesday in the capital, Antananarivo, according to footage captured on the privately owned channel Real TV Madagasikara.
In Fenoarivo, a small town 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the capital, protesters also staged a demonstration.
According to local media, racial tensions were reported in Diego Suarez and Mahajanga, which are both located 510 kilometers (315 miles) northwest of Antananarivo.
The four days of demonstrations are the largest the Indian Ocean island has seen in years, and they are the most significant challenge Rajoelina has faced since winning re-election in 2023. They were inspired by the Gen Z protests in Kenya and Nepal.
There is no guarantee that India and Pakistan players will kiss each other when they play in the Women’s World Cup on Sunday, according to Devajit Saikia, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The teams played three games, including the recently concluded men’s Asia Cup final, against each other three times.
Pakistan coach Mike Hesson claimed India refused to shake hands during their first game, which was their first since the conflict between the countries earlier this year.
The conflict persisted throughout, culminating in India refusing to accept Mohsin Naqvi, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board and president of the Asian Cricket Council, the winners’ trophy.
Saikia told BBC Stumped, “I can’t say much, but our relationship with that particular hostile nation is the same, and nothing has changed in the last week.”
“All cricket protocols will be followed when India plays that game against Pakistan in Colombo.” I can only confirm that whatever is written in the MCC’s cricket regulations will be done.
I can’t promise you of anything at this time, “I’m not sure whether there will be handshakes or hugging.”
Since the teams will only face off in regional competitions and against each other throughout the World Cup, Pakistan are based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, for the duration of the tournament.
This policy existed prior to the four-day conflict in April, which came after a deadly militant attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir.
In Colombo, Pakistan will also play their games if they advance to the semi-final or final.
Local authorities in the German city have announced that Oktoberfest, Munich’s renowned beer festival, will be closed for the majority of Wednesday following a security concern related to a deadly explosion elsewhere in the city.
As a result of an investigation into whether an explosion at a residential building in northern Munich was connected to Oktoberfest, the festival grounds will remain closed until at least 5pm (15:00 GMT).
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According to Germany’s Bild newspaper, a man planted explosives in his parents’ home in Munich’s Lerchenau district. One victim was killed at the scene, and another is still unaccounted for. According to the police, special forces were used to extricate booby traps discovered inside the building.
“We are currently looking into every possibility,” he said. Possible connections to other Munich locations, including the Theresienwiese [the Oktoberfest venue], are being looked into, according to a Munich police statement that was cited by the Reuters news agency. The festival grounds’ opening has been postponed because of this.
The festival grounds are still being searched, according to city officials, who confirmed this on their official X account and gave instructions to visitors to leave.
Oktoberfest also stated on its website that a “bomb threat” will prevent it from happening until 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, and that a decision will be made regarding how to proceed.
The Oktoberfest this year started on September 20 and ends on October 5. Up to six million people usually attend the largest beer festival in the world.
