JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — The Taliban forces now regrouping in southern Afghanistan may have communications problems, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Nov. 13.

Those problems will grow at least a little more complicated when they lose access to at least two satellite phones in their possession. Yousuf Al Sayed, chief executive of Thuraya Satellite Telecommunications Co. of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, that the Taliban have at least two of the company’s small satellite telephones at their disposal, but that their service was being cut off.

Abdul Haq, an Afghan resistance fighter who slipped into the country to sow anti-Taliban sentiment in southern Afghanistan, was carrying two Thuraya phones. Taliban forces ambushed Haq and his party and Haq was hanged, Al Sayed said.

Al Sayed said the Taliban kept the two Thuraya phones and have been using them. Thuraya, he said, plans to cut off the service.

In general, use of the Thuraya satellite system in Afghanistan has skyrocketed in recent weeks since the war began, company officials said.

Al Sayed said the company was booking 120 hours per day in calls from Afghanistan alone. Thuraya, which began commercial operations in July, counts 8,000 subscribers in 25 nations in the Middle East and South Asia.

Thuraya expects to have a license to operate in Pakistan within weeks and expects a booming market there as government organizations, relief workers, journalists and others deal with the war and the Afghan refugee crisis.