Khyber Pass

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Khyber Pass
Looking back towards Pakistan, on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass
Elevation	1070 m
Location	Pakistan/Afghanistan
Range	Hindu Kush
Coordinates	34°5′36″N, 71°9′5″E

The Khyber Pass (also called the Khaiber Pass or Khaybar Pass) (Urdu: درہ خیبر) (el. 1070 m.) 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 pass summit is 5 km inside Pakistan at Landi Kotal. The pass cuts through the Safed Koh mountains which are a far southeastern extension of the Hindu Kush range. It is about 5 km from the Pakistan border.

1 Geography
2 History
3 Bibliography
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Geography

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 BC 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 ft.). The current road was built by the British through the Pass in 1879 and a railway in the 1920s (the previous railhead was at Jamrud).

[edit] History

An advertisement card from 1910 depitcing Khaiber Pass.

In some versions of the Aryan migration theory, the Indo-Aryans migrated to India via the Khyber Pass. Recorded invasions through the Khyber Pass 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."

Rudyard Kipling called it "a sword cut through the mountains."

It became widely known to thousands of Westerners and Japanese who traveled it in the days of the Hippie trail. Taking a public or private bus or car from Kabul or the Afghan border, on the Pakistani side people were advised not to wander away from the road. A quick daylight passage was then made. Monuments left by British Army units, as well as hillside forts, could be viewed from the highway.

The area of the Khyber Pass has been connected with a counterfeit arms industry, making AK-47's and Martini-Henry rifles, among others including pistols and sub machine guns using local steel and blacksmiths' forges.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Trivia

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 Khyber 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.
In the movie, "The Man Who Would Be King", directed by John Huston and starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine, the protagonists make a journey through the Khyber Pass in which they must fool a British military guard who knows them.
Khyber Pass is referenced in the song "Life is a Highway" by Tom Cochrane.