RASC News Agency: A major cyberattack has struck the heart of the Taliban’s digital infrastructure, targeting six key ministries in what analysts are calling one of the most significant acts of cyber resistance since the group’s return to power in 2021. A hacktivist collective calling itself “Dragons” claimed responsibility, stating that the operation was carried out in direct opposition to the Taliban’s repressive regime and in protest of its sustained assault on women’s right to education. According to a statement issued by the group to multiple media outlets, the cyber offensive began late Wednesday night and continued until approximately 2:15 a.m., crippling the websites of the Taliban-controlled Ministries of Defense, Interior, Finance, Higher Education, and Telecommunications. Within hours, the Ministry of Education’s website also went offline symbolically targeting the institution tasked with implementing the Taliban’s policy of gender apartheid in schools and universities.
The hackers declared their motive as a form of political and moral resistance, emphasizing their outrage over the Taliban’s systematic erasure of women and girls from public life. “This attack is a response to tyranny,” their statement read. “We refuse to remain silent while the Taliban weaponizes religion to rob young Afghanistani girls of their futures.” This latest cyber operation marks a continuation of escalating digital resistance inside and outside Afghanistan. In a previous unprecedented attack, an anonymous hacker group exposed a trove of sensitive Taliban files, leaking thousands of documents from 21 ministries and affiliated agencies. The leak included internal data from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, Justice, Culture and Information, Mines, and even the Taliban’s so-called Supreme Court inflicting serious reputational and operational damage on the group’s already brittle governance machinery.
The Taliban’s reaction to these cyber intrusions has been notably muted, a silence widely interpreted as a sign of its lack of preparedness and vulnerability in cyberspace. Despite attempts to portray an image of control, the regime has failed to establish any credible digital security apparatus or technological resilience leaving its administration exposed to further breaches and embarrassment. This attack comes amid deepening crises in Afghanistan, where civil liberties have all but vanished under the Taliban’s draconian rule. The regime’s repression of women, purging of civil society institutions, violent censorship of the media, and persecution of ethnic minorities have made traditional forms of dissent nearly impossible. In this context, digital activism has emerged as one of the few remaining tools of resistance a platform where the voices silenced by the Taliban’s authoritarianism can find new means of expression and retaliation.
Cyber attacks like those launched by “Dragons” are not merely acts of disruption they are symbolic strikes against a regime that has cloaked its brutality in the language of religious legitimacy and national sovereignty. These acts expose the regime’s fragility and highlight the growing determination of resistance forces both domestic and in exile to challenge Taliban oppression in every sphere possible, including the digital battleground. As the Taliban faces rising domestic discontent and mounting international scrutiny, its inability to protect even its basic government infrastructure from online assault underscores a deeper reality: that power seized through violence and fear is ultimately unsustainable in the face of organized, innovative resistance.
