The Taliban has denied implementing a nationwide internet ban, following a communications blackout across Afghanistan this week.

In a statement made to Pakistani journalists on a chat group on Wednesday, Taliban officials claimed the outages have been caused by old fibre-optic cables that needed replacing.

“There is nothing like the rumours being spread that we have imposed a ban on the internet,” they said in a three-line statement.

It is the hardline Islamic government’s first public announcement on the issue since the start of communications failures, which also compromised telephone services, on Monday.

Netblocks, a global internet watchdog, said at the time that there was a “total internet blackout” in the nation of 43 million people.

Despite the Taliban claiming no hand in the i

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