Pashto Times

The 10th Field Battery (Royal Artillery) At Inayat Killa, Bajaur, 1898 (c). The Mohmands are a Pashtun tribe who inhabit the hilly country to the north-west of Peshawar, in the North-West Frontier Province of what the British considered part of the British Empire, now Pakistan. British punitive expeditions had been sent against the Mohmands in 1851–1852, 1854, 1864, 1879, 1880, but the principal operations were those of 1897–1898. The year 1897 witnessed an almost general outbreak among the tribes on the north-west frontier of India. The tribes involved were practically independent, but the new frontier arranged with the amir of Afghanistan, and demarcated by Sir Mortimer Durand's commission of 1893–1894 (the Durand Line), brought them within the British sphere of influence. The fear of these tribes was annexation, and the hostility shown during the demarcation led to the Waziri expedition of 1894. Other causes, however, contributed to bring about the outbreak of 1897. The easy vic...