Landi Kotal

Landi Kotal during the Second Anglo-Afghan War when it served as an encampment of the 12,000-strong Peshawar Valley Field Force under General Sir Samuel Browne who was crossing the Khyber Pass on the way towards Kabul at the start of the war. The small fort in the foreground guards the western end of the Khyber Pass. Photograph by John Burke

Landi Kotal was the westernmost part of the Khyber held by the British during their rule of the Indian subcontinent.[5] In 1897 the Afridis attacked Landi Kotal and other posts in the Khyber Pass. Although the Khyber Rifles put up a stiff defence, Landi Kotal was overrun,[6] as the Rifles lacked water.[7] The British counter-attacked with a force of 34,500 men under Sir William Lockhart, defeating the Afridis, although the Afridis took the town again during the second Anglo-Afghan War.[8]

The Landi Kotal fort during the period of British rule was of the ordinary type, consisting of a keep and an outer fort with accommodation for 5 British officers and 500 native officers and men. From 1899, like the other posts in the Khyber, it had been garrisoned by the Khyber Rifles, an irregular corps of militia recruited from the tribes of the Khyber Agency.[6]

In 1925 the heavily engineered Khyber Pass Railway was opened linking Jamrud to the Landi Kotal.[4]

One such tourist attraction nearby Landi Kotal is the Khyber Pass, a mountain pass connecting Landi Kotal to the Valley of Peshawar. Another, slightly less known landmark is a banyan tree, which was placed under arrest in 1898 by a drunk British officer named James Squid.[9] While Pakistan became independent from the United Kingdom in 1947, there is still a board on the tree notifying passerby of its arrest.

• Hamza Shinwari
• Shaheen Afridi
• Usman Khan Shinwari
• Khatir Afridi
• Ayub Afridi

==External links==

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Landi Kotal.

{Landi Kotal railway station} {}