A few months ago, Pakistan began forcibly deporting thousands of Afghans who had fled over the border when the Taliban returned to power in 2021. They returned to an Afghanistan engulfed by poverty, widespread starvation, and shortfalls in medicine and shelter. Upon arrival, the refugees found an unlikely welcome package: humanitarian aid, set up by the Taliban, in the form of food, tents, and free SIM cards.

The SIM card detail caught my eye. It’s hard to believe now but a decade ago, Time magazine proclaimed that Afghanistan “is on the leading edge of a technology revolution.” Local telecom Roshan was feted by TechCrunch for “ending Afghan corruption, one text at a time.” I visited Kabul in 2012, six months after a cautiously triumphant President Barack Obama announced his intention to begin drawing down U.S. troops. The capital was full of smart young professionals who, despite enormous challenges, still believed in what digital technology could bring to a new, emergent Afghanistan.

Times have changed. Attaullah Omar, a journalist with Afghanistan’s Tolo News, visited border camps in Spin Boldak recently and told me that the phone-only SIMs were available to all refugees, including women. “Families could receive up to four SIM cards,” he said, while noting that only some refugees still had their phones after making the journey (“stolen by Pakistani soldiers”). 

Why such generosity? Because in their time out of power, the Taliban learned what all governments now know: SIM cards are worth every penny. The SIM distribution may have been a lifeline for disoriented refugees. But it was equally an effective onboarding for the Taliban’s future intentions.

I asked Mohammad Najeeb Azizi, the former chairman of the Afghanistan Telecom Regulatory Authority, why the Taliban would prioritize SIM cards. “This move seems driven by the government’s interest in collecting and centralizing biometric data for identification, tracking, and surveillance purposes,” he said. Omar agreed: “Probably to keep track of the refugees.”

A country’s telecommunications are among the first sectors that any new power — legitimate or otherwise — seeks to control. That’s not necessarily a bad thing: An autocrat shuts off the internet, then there’s a coup, and the new regime can turn it back on. But all too often outside the West, state control over a country’s networks leads to civilian harm. That was true in 1994, when an infamous broadcast from the government-aligned Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines station incited genocidal violence against the Tutsi population in Rwanda. It’s true now: As we have covered (very) extensively, each year more governments around the world are embracing targeted or total internet blackouts. That’s despite the fact that even short-lived shutdowns harm the economy, make civilians less safe, and handicap the innovative sectors that could fuel growth. Even private telecom operators are in a bind, because they can only operate with a government license. If the government changes and demands something, you comply or you leave.

Indeed, it seems the Taliban understood not to disrupt Afghanistan’s telecom industry. Such is the sector’s resilience that even amid profound economic and regulatory uncertainty, Azizi said that all five operators in the country have reported positive growth. There’s even a multimillion-dollar plan to build 450 new towers across the country. 

And the most remarkable thing about this is that everything is imported. Afghanistan doesn’t have the ability to manufacture the towers, to build the phones, or to design the software. China is a top supplier, but not the only one. 

Global trade now means that even a pariah government like the Taliban can invest in and operate sophisticated surveillance systems, while imposing regressive policies that keep its population poor, hungry, and isolated. It’s a profound signal of how all governments will approach digital control in our era. For the Taliban, the value of being able to track Afghanistan’s women and girls — who remain barred from working, being educated, or even visiting parks — is higher than the risk of giving them access to the world and its information. The same world the Taliban fought wars to shield them from.