Second Mohmand campaign | |||||||
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Part of the Anglo-Afghan wars | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Mohmand Kingdom of Afghanistan | British Army India | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Haji of Turangzai King Zahir Shah | Claude Auchinleck ContentsCharles Hamilton BoucherHarold Alexander | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Royal Afghan Army | Royal Air Force | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
| 30,000 [3] |
The Second Mohmand campaign of 1935 was a British military campaign against the Mohmand tribes in the Northwest Frontier area of British India, now Pakistan. The campaign began in August 1935 where Tanks were used, their first operational use India, and with help from the Royal Air Force the revolt was suppressed and the Mohmands submitted in October 1935.
The Mohmand are a Pashtun hill tribe who lived north-west of Peshawar in the Mohmand Agency, North-West Frontier Province of British India; now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. They moved annually across the border to the hills of Afghanistan to escape the summer heat; the border was delineated by the Durand Line in 1893 but was poorly defined.
The First Mohmand campaign in 1897–98 followed earlier military expeditions in 1851–1852, 1854, 1864, 1879, 1880. After the First Mohmand campaign, there was the Mohmand expedition of 1908 and the Mohmand and Bajaur operations of 1933, taking about a month in August.
In 1935 the Mohmand, influenced by the Haji of Turangzai and his three sons the Badshah Guls, were marauding in the plains. At the end of July about 2000 tribesmen were disrupting working parties repairing the Mohinand–Gandab road. [4]
In 1935, the British launched a military campaign against the Mohmand tribes in response to their continuous resistance and raids. The operation involved significant British Indian Army forces, including infantry, artillery, and air support, aimed at penetrating the Mohmand territory and quelling the tribal unrest.
The campaign saw several skirmishes and confrontations, with the British forces attempting to assert control over the region. Despite their military superiority, the Mohmand tribes put up stiff resistance, using their knowledge of the difficult mountainous terrain to their advantage.
The campaign resulted in considerable casualties among the British forces. The Mohmands managed to maintain their resistance and, ultimately, forced the British to withdraw. The British withdrawal marked a significant victory for the Mohmand tribes, underscoring the challenges of maintaining control over the fiercely independent tribal regions on the Northwest Frontier.
This military effort was part of the broader context of British attempts to control the tribal areas, which frequently resisted colonial rule through guerrilla tactics and intermittent uprisings.
After the campaign, the Mohmands and the British convened a Jirga (tribal assembly) to negotiate a settlement and bring an end to the hostilities. The Jirga allowed both parties to address their grievances and establish terms for peace. The agreement reached at the Jirga put an end to the campaign and established a temporary peace in the region.
Waziristan is a mountainous region covering the North Waziristan and South Waziristan districts of the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Waziristan covers around 11,585 square kilometres (4,500 sq mi) and is mainly populated by the Wazir Pashtun tribe, who speak the Waziri dialect of the Pashto language.
The Shinwari are an ethnic Pashtun tribe of Afghanistan. Among the greatest poets of the Pashto language in the 20th century was the late Ameer Hamza Shinwari, also known as "Hamza Baba".
The Mohmand or Momand is a prominent tribe of Pashtun people.
The North-West Frontier was a region of the British Indian Empire. It remains the western frontier of present-day Pakistan, extending from the Pamir Knot in the north to the Koh-i-Malik Siah in the west, and separating the modern Pakistani frontier regions of North-West Frontier Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Balochistan from neighbouring Afghanistan in the west. The borderline between is officially known as the Durand Line and divides Pashtun inhabitants of these provinces from Pashtuns in eastern Afghanistan.
A jirga is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic groups who are influenced by them in present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Parachinar is a town and the capital of the Kurram District in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
South Waziristan District was a district in the Dera Ismail Khan Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, before splitting into the Lower South Waziristan District and the Upper South Waziristan District on 13 April 2022. It covers around 11,585 km2 (4,473 mi2). Waziristan is located in the southwest of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It is situated between two rivers, the Tochi River to the north and the Gomal River to the south. The region was an independent tribal territory from 1893, separated from both Afghanistan and the British-ruled empire in the subcontinent. Raiding the tribal areas was a constant problem for the British, requiring frequent punitive expeditions between 1860 and 1945. Troops of the British Raj coined a name for this region "Hell's Door Knocker" in recognition of the fearsome reputation of the local fighters and inhospitable terrain. The district headquarter of the South Waziristan district is Wanna. South Waziristan is divided into three administrative subdivisions of Ladha, Sarwakai, and Wanna. These three subdivisions are further divided into eight Tehsils: Ladha, Makin, Sararogha, Sarwakai, Tiarza, Wanna, Barmal, and Toi Khula.
Haji Mirzali Khan Wazir, commonly known as the Faqir of Ipi, was a tribal chief and adversary to the British Raj from North Waziristan in what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
Kurram District is a district in the Kohat Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The name Kurram comes from the river Kwarma in Pashto which itself derives from the Sanskrit word Krumuḥ.
The Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) were a special set of laws of British India, and which were applicable to the Tribal Areas. They were enacted by the British Empire in the nineteenth century and remained in effect in Pakistan until 2018. They were extended to the Gilgit Agency in Jammu and Kashmir in 1901 and to Baltistan in 1947, remaining in effect till the 1970s.
Goshta District is located in the northeast of Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan and borders Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The district's population is Pashtun and was estimated at 160,000 in 2002, of whom 30,000 were children under 12. The district is within the heartland of the Mohmand tribe of Pashtuns. The district centre is the village of Goshta, on the Kabul River.
The First Mohmand campaign was a British military campaign against the Mohmand from 1897 to 1898.
The Mullagori or Mulagori or Malagori is a Pashtun tribe present in Khyber District, tribal areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Historically, they are one of the smallest tribes of ethnic Pashtuns. They are considered as a sub-tribe of Momand Pashtun Ghoryakhel confederacy.
The insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also known as the War in North-West Pakistan or Pakistan's war on terror, is an ongoing armed conflict involving Pakistan and Islamist militant groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), TNSM, al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies such as the ISIL–Khorasan (ISIL), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement, Emirate of Caucasus, and elements of organized crime. Formerly a war, it is now a low-level insurgency as of 2017.
The Khyber Pass is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. It connects the town of Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar at Jamrud by traversing part of the White Mountains. Since it was part of the ancient Silk Road, it has been a vital trade route between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and a strategic military choke point for various states that controlled it. The Khyber Pass is considered one of the most famous mountain passes in the world.
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The Ambela campaign of 1863 was one of many expeditions in the border area between the Emirate of Afghanistan and the Punjab Province of British India against the Hindustani Fanatics at Malka, a colony of malcontents or bigoted Muslims from Hindustan.
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas, commonly known as FATA, was a semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan that existed from 1947 until being merged with the neighbouring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018 through the Twenty-fifth amendment to the constitution of Pakistan. It consisted of seven tribal agencies (districts) and six frontier regions, and were directly governed by the federal government through a special set of laws called the Frontier Crimes Regulations.
On 9 July 2010, a suicide bombing occurred in a market in Yakaghund, Mohmand Agency, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. At least 104 people were killed while more than 120 people were wounded. This was the last of a streak of attacks that was the record most major terrorist attacks in a row in the Pakistan war on terrorism, with least 7 in a row, much more than the previous record of 2 which happened only 2 times; marking an escalating of the War on Terrorism in Pakistan.
In 1917, the British Empire launched a successful punitive expedition against the Mahsud.