Taliban Stopped Paying Electricity Providers, Kabul Now Facing Blackout

The Taliban has stopped paying foreign electricity providers, leaving Kabul, Afghanistan, on the verge of a blackout.

Afghanistan gets most of its electricity from Central Asian suppliers, according to the Wall Street Journal, but the Taliban, which is now in charge of the Afghan government, has stalled on paying electricity providers and on collecting money for the service from customers, threatening to plunge the country back into the “dark ages.”

“The consequences would be countrywide, but especially in Kabul. There will be blackout and it would bring Afghanistan back to the Dark Ages when it comes to power and to telecommunications,” one of the few remaining employees of Afghanistan’s state-run electricity company, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), told the WSJ. “This would be a really dangerous situation.”

Many of DABS employees have resigned, including its chief executive, after the Taliban took control. The government and many of its services are at a “standstill,” the WSJ notes, as the Taliban handles more pressing priorities, like reinstitution corporeal punishment for various crimes. A “Taliban cleric” is now in charge of DABS.