Militants attack pylon, cut power to Afghan capital

Taliban militants have attacked a transmission tower line in northern Afghanistan, causing a massive outage in the capital Kabul.

Taliban militants have attacked a transmission tower line in northern Afghanistan, causing a massive outage in the capital Kabul.

Officials said Sunday that many residents of Kabul were left with no lights or running water after Taliban militants blew up a pylon in Baghlan province.

Wahid Tawhidi, a spokesman for power utility Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), said Kabul had to do with only 95 megawatts, less than a quarter of its normal power supply, after the damage was inflicted to the transmission line.

Tawhidi said local DABS crew was unable to reach the site of the pylon to fix it due to recurrent attack by militants who were still in the area.

“Today when our team tried to go to the area, rockets were fired at their vehicles and they had to turn back,” said Tawhidi, adding that it was the fourth time in recent weeks that Kabul suffered an outage due to Taliban attacks on the power line transmitting electricity from the restive north.