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Posts with tag afghanistan

Soldier's Cell Phone Calls Parents During Battle in Afghanistan

If you're not in the habit of locking your keypad before throwing it in your pocket or purse, you've probably had it make a few calls without your knowledge. Accidental dialing is annoying, but usually just results in some long, boring voicemails of background noise, or, in a worst-case scenario, captures your off-key singing along with some Michael Buble song your car stereo.

But a recent unintentional voicemail turns out to be a different story, as it was left by Jeff Nolan, a soldier deployed in Afghanistan whose phone dialed his parents' home on Oregon on its own accord -- in the middle of a gunfight.

The nearly three-minute voicemail captures the sound of extended automatic gunfire, a bit of muffled profanity, and ends with a disturbing yell: "Incoming RPG!" Not exactly what you would want to hear coming from your son's phone! Thankfully, Jeff survived the battle, and his family has since posted the voicemail on YouTube for all to hear. [Source: KPTV, via Textually.org]

Taliban Threatens to Blow Up Cell Phone Towers

Taliban Threatens to Blow Up Cell Phone Towers

Taliban militants are threatening to blow up the radio towers of cell phone companies in Afghanistan if they don't shut down their networks for ten hours, starting at 5 P.M, according to the Associated Press. Zabiullah Mujaheed, a Taliban spokesman, has said the networks have three days to comply with the demands.

The Taliban believes that the U.S. military is using the cell phone signals to collect intelligence about insurgent locations and plans. In the past, leaders have even accused Afghanistan's four cell phone companies of conspiring with the American forces.

But while the complicity of the cell phone companies would certainly be of aide to the U.S., it is not necessary. U.S. intelligence agencies have satellites and other technologies that would allow them to intercept cell phone signals without the assistance of the companies themselves.

The only people who would suffer, alas, from a post-dusk cell-phone-network-shut-down, are the Afghani people (and, presumably, the cell phone companies).

So far none of the mobile operators have agreed to the Taliban's demands.

From AOL News/AP

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