Afghanistan gets "dot-af" Internet domain

Today's formal activation of Afghanistan's new Top Level Domain (ccTLD), as Internet country codes are known, marks the culmination of a complex international application process, and the parallel development of new telecommunications links enabling Afghanistan to put the new .af domain to immediate use.

More important, Afghan officials noted, it marks a symbolic break with the recent past: Under the Taliban regime, use of the Internet was ruthlessly suppressed, with non-governmental use of e-mail services and website punishable by death.

"For Afghanistan, this is like reclaiming part of our sovereignty," said Mohammad Masoom Stanakzai, the Minister of Communications in Afghanistan's transitional government. "It is the country's flag on the Internet."

"The Government has made ICT a priority," added Minister Stanakzai at the opening of a three-day conference in Kabul on ICT policy for Afghanistan. "Afghanistan can now be recognized on the internet, among all other countries in the world. The international community has been working with us to help bridge the digital divide in Afghanistan. You now see provinces that are connected. Internet will continue to help in the development of the country," he added.

The first websites registered under the new ".af" domain are the www.moc.gov.af site of the Ministry of Communications, which is spearheading Afghanistan's efforts to develop new Internet connections and resources, and the local www.undp.org.af site of the United Nations Development Programme, which provided legal counsel and technical support for the ".af" programme.

To commemorate the occasion for Afghanistan, a symbolic ".af" placard was presented to Minister Stanakzai today by Ercan Murat, Director of the UNDP's Afghanistan programme, and announcements about the new national domain were posted on the newly activated national Internet sites.

"A modern telecommunications system, including full Internet access, is critical to the recovery and development efforts now being carried out by the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan," Murat said. "The UNDP team here is very gratified that we were able to help Afghanistan secure its rights to this essential service. The activation of the .af domain will help in the continued development of the country. We are glad to be part of this process to bridge a divide that has existed since the Taliban."

Equivalent to a country code for telephone numbers, the .af Internet suffix has now been reserved exclusively for private and official e-mail and World Wide Web users in Afghanistan. During the Taliban area, Afghan expatriates acting privately had made initial efforts to register the .af domain, giving them effective control of the .af address under rules then governing Internet nomenclature. At the end of the 1990s, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) halted registration of new domain names in the .af registry. Numerous attempts to track down the owner of the domain failed. War within the country made communications into Afghanistan extremely difficult.

In 2001, the Taliban regime prohibited non-governmental Internet use, ordering its Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to "prosecute the violators of this edict and in case of proof, religious punishment should be applied on them."

In November 2001, under attack from Afghan and UN-backed coalition forces, Taliban forces fled Kabul. At the request of the new Interim Authority in Afghanistan, UNDP contacted ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to assume the administration of the .af registry. At the time, Internet access and connections were still extremely limited in Afghanistan, with a few non-governmental organizations and international organizations maintaining the only active links. UNDP was given the task by the Interim Authority to restore the .af registry to active status, with the understanding that its role would be transitional and temporary. UNDP began the challenge of restoring Internet Domain Name Systems (DNS) service, building technical and administrative capacity within Afghanistan.

ICANN worked with UNDP staff to explain the technical and administrative requirements for a ccTLD registry, and to prepare the necessary technical, administrative and policy arrangements. UNDP helped to hire and train national Afghan staff and provide fellowships. It solicited assistance from the private sector and obtained two donated computer servers from Sun Microsystems, a US-based company. UNDP drafted a technical plan and presented it to the government. It prepared all of the necessary documentation requested by ICANN.

The documentation was reviewed and approved by ICANN, and today the .af ccTLD has been handed over to the Ministry of Communications. The Ministry's technical partner will be UNDP, which has a global technical infrastructure, including long experience in running DNS services. UNDP's global network spans every kind of Internet environment, from the most advanced to the most rudimentary, from UN headquarters in New York to 166 countries around the globe.

Though it is preferable for a ccTLD to have its technical operations inside the country that is still not an option for Afghanistan.

To carry out its responsibilities as the new technical manager of the .af ccTLD, UNDP has agreed to host the main country code domain server at its headquarters in New York, where the bandwidth, power, and skilled support are available to run it. A secondary server will be provided to the Ministry of Communications staff for training in the area of management of ccTLD. Beyond technical assistance and expertise, UNDP is providing guidance with registration policies. It continues to seek funding for further training, software and back-up servers hosted around the world.

Working closely with Afghan communities and government ministries, UNDP has many other IT-related initiatives in the country. It helped to ensure Internet connectivity with direct satellite access for President Hamid Karzai's Office, the Afghanistan Aid Coordination Authority and the Ministry of Women's Affairs. A UNDP contribution of US$80,000 provided assistance to the creation of the Government's intranet system, including the training for and installation of microwave towers in 10 sites.

In addition, UNDP and Cisco Systems created the Cisco Networking Academy Progam at Kabul University, which is now run by local faculty. UNDP has also helped to establish ICT training centers in Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif, offering training to civil servants as well as to private citizens, with a special emphasis on women. At the policy level, the Ministry of Communications works closely with UNDP, which offers advisory services for Internet Service Provider licensing, ICT policy formulation and regulation. As the UN's global development network, UNDP organized international ICT policy workshops for senior Afghan policy-makers with ICT experts from other countries.

The UNDP ICT programme is an integral part of the overall UN assistance programme for Afghanistan.

For further information or to arrange interviews with Minister Stanakzai, contact: In Kabul: Svetlana Murtazalieva:, 93 70 28 23 16; Aimal Marjan, mobile: 93 70 28 33 38; or Marc Lepage.

Cherie Hart in Bangkok, 662 288 2133; Laura Ngo-Fontaine in Geneva; William Orme in New York, 212 906 5382.