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Because there is no radar coverage, only a very basic service is provided with little flexibility. For example, they require 10 minute spacing between aircraft on the same route at the same level. If there was another aircraft ahead at the same level, you aircraft would be denied access until ten minutes after that aircraft had entered Afghanistan airspace. You can see that if there was more than one aircraft ahead the delay would blow out very quickly!
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To facilitate this, a system called BOBCAT (Bay of Bengal Co-operative ATFM) has been set up. If anyone is interested, you can read a bit more about it here -
BOBCAT
They are the ones who control the departures from SIN,BKK,KUL and other airports in the area, which is what would have delayed Philip's flight in this case. Each flight that is going to transit Kabul's airspace is given a "Wheels Up time" which is based on their planned flight time from the departure airport to the Afghanistan airspace boundary.
Because the aircraft are accurately controlled from the time they taxi, there is generally a 10 min separation between aircraft by the time they get to Afghanistan. The system actually works pretty well, but does result in occasional delays on the ground in places like Singapore.
Hope this answers everything guys!