Kill or be killed: the charming cut-throats of the wild frontier

Paul Raffaele visits the site of a long-forgotten siege in the Hindu Kush

THE PAKISTAN AIRLINES FOKKER FRIENDSHIP, a small turboprop, weaved through the high snow mountains of the Hindu Kush an hour after we left Islamabad. The mountain people were isolated from the rest of the world for several months each winter by heavy snowfalls that blocked all the passes and were too dangerous for turboprops. But it was late summer, and the pilot speared through a gap in the mountains. We landed in a valley close by a small town, Chitral. I had come to that faraway place in search of a mysterious Afghan tribe, the Kafirs, who claimed as their ancestors the Macedonian troops accompanying Alexander the Great’s invading army in 333BC. But while there, I came across a tale of British military heroism at the besieged Chitral fortress. It…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, August - September 2023

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