Etisalat, the telecom giant of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), will launch operations in Afghanistan by the end of June, local newspaper Gulf News reported on Wednesday.

Etisalat's operations in the war-ravaged Afghanistan will focus on low-tech voice and text services, the company's CEO Mohammad Al Qamzi was quoted as saying.

"Etisalat Afghanistan offers mobile services with 2G and plans to introduce its services in the first half of this year," he added.

The announcement came just a week after the launch of Etisalat Misr, its subsidiary in Egypt, which became Egypt's third mobile operator.

Etisalat Misr launched Egypt's first 3.5G network and also brought mobile television, high-speed internet access and video calling to the Egyptian market for the first time.

Being the second-largest Arab telecom company by market value, Etisalat manages 14 service providers in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

The company currently has access to a potential market of over 400 million subscribers and its services reach over 32 million subscribers.