Khyber Pass

Looking back towards Pakistan, on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass

The Khyber Pass (also called the Khaiber Pass or Khaybar Pass) (Urdu: درہ خیبر) is the most important pass connecting Pakistan with Afghanistan. Throughout history it has been an important trade route between Central Asia and South Asia and a strategic military location. The actual pass summit is 5 kilometers inside Pakistan at Landi Kotal. The pass cuts through the Safed Koh mountains which are a far southeastern extension of the Hindu Kush range.

Geography

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Khyber Pass, Afghan side near border

Going northwest from the eastern end in Pakistan, the pass starts from near Jamrud (15 km west of Peshawar) and ends west of Torkham, Afghanistan, a winding road of 48 km. The route passes Fort Maude and Ali Masjid to reach the narrowest point of the pass, just 15 m wide. The summit is at Landi Kotal, followed by a steep decline to Michni Kandao, Landi Khana and the Afghan border just east of Torkham. Here the gradient becomes easier as the pass exits at Haft Chah onto the Dakka plain. From Dakka, the Kabul River flows back to Peshawar through the Loe Shilman Gorge, a less direct and more difficult route, but the one chosen by Alexander the Great when he crossed over into South Asia in 326 BCE in an attempt to invade the Indus Valley.

Jamrud is at an elevation of 491 m (1610 feet), while the summit at Landi Kotal is 1070 m (3509 feet). The current road was built by the British through the Pass in 1879 and a railroad in the 1920s (the previous railhead was at Jamrud).

History

The Khyber Pass has been an invasion route to South Asia probably since the ancient Aryan people settled into the Indus valley. Recorded invasions date from the time of Alexander the Great, with several Muslim invasions of South Asia, culminating with the establishment of the Mughul Empire from 1526. Going the other way, the British invaded Afghanistan through the Pass and fought three Afghan Wars in 1839-42, 1878-80, and 1919.

To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Mullagori Afridis. To the south is Afridi Tirah, while the inhabitants of villages in the Pass itself are Afridi clansmen. Throughout the centuries the Pashtun clans, particularly the Afridis and the Afghan Shinwaris, have regarded the Pass as their own preserve and have levied a toll on travellers for safe conduct. Since this form of extortion has always been their main source of income, they are naturally disturbed when anyone comes along to interfere with it. Hence their dislike of invading armies and penetrations, and other exercises of authority, even though some armies have been prepared to pay the blackmail, in the form of allowances. Resistance from the local tribesmen has always been fierce.

George Molesworth, a member of the British force of 1919, summarised it well. "Every stone in the Khaibar has been soaked in blood."

The Khyber Pass has also been the center of a local counterfeit arms industry, making AK-47's and Martini-Henry rifles, among others, using local steel and blacksmiths' forges.

Bibliography

• Molesworth, Lt-Gen. G.N., Afghanistan 1919 (Asia Publishing House, 1962). Describes in detail the author's passage through the Khyber Pass, when he was Adjutant of the 2/Somerset Light Infantry.

Trivia

On a lighter note:

• The Khyber Pass was the alleged setting of the 1968 comedy film Carry On up the Khyber. The Khyber Pass scenes were actually shot in Snowdonia, Wales.
• Khyber Pass is Cockney rhyming slang for "arse".
• It is the nickname of a narrow passage in London's King's Cross St. Pancras tube station.
• A steep, narrow close (lane) in Stromness, Orkney goes by the name Khyber Pass.
• There is a Kyber Pass Rd in Auckland, New Zealand.
• There is a Pink Floyd song called Up The Khyber on the album More.
• There is a Ministry song called 'Khyber Pass' on the album Rio Grande Blood.

See also

• Khaybar
• Peshawar
• North West Frontier Province
• Khyber agency
• Federally Administered Tribal Areas
• Pakistan
• Afghanistan

External links

• Khyber Pass

34°16′N 70°58′E