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Khyber Pass The Khyber Pass, (also spelled Khaiber or Khaybar; Pashto: دیبر درہ) (altitude: 1,070 m or 3,510 ft) is a mountain pass that links Pakistan and Afghanistan. Throughout history it has been an important trade route between Central Asia and South Asia and a strategic military location. The summit of the Khyber Pass is 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inside Pakistan at Landi Kotal and it cuts through the North-Eastern part of the Safed Koh mountains which themselves are a far South-Eastern extension of the Hindu Kush range. In some versions of the Aryan migration theory, the Indo-Aryans migrated to India via the Khyber Pass. Recorded invasions through the Khyber begin with the conquests of Alexander the Great and also include later Muslim invasions of South Asia, culminating with the establishment of the Mughul Empire from 1526. The British invaded Afghanistan from India and fought three Afghan Wars in 1839-42, 1878-80, and 1919. George Molesworth, a member of the British force of 1919, summarised: "Every stone in the Khyber has been soaked in blood." Rudyard Kipling called it "a sword cut through the mountains." Afghan chiefs and a British Political officer posed at Jamrud fort at the mouth of the Khyber Pass in 1878. To the north of the Khyber Pass lies the country of the Mullagoris. 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 has long been their main source of income, resistance to challenges to the Shinwaris' authority has often been fierce. For strategic reasons, after the First World War the British built a heavily engineered railway through the Pass. The Khyber Pass Railway from Jamrud, near Peshawar, to the Afghan border near Landi Kotal was opened in 1925. At the Pakistani frontier post travellers were advised not to wander away from the road, this being the barely controlled Federally Administered Tribal Areas. KJTI organises tours to see the Khyber Pass in June to September with the permission of the authorities. (Some information and links sourced from Wikipedia) Adventure Travel in North Pakistan http://www.kjti.co.uk/
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