Battle of Akora Khattak

Akora, located 18 miles from Attock across the Indus, held strategic importance. The area was inhabited by Khattak Afghans led by Najaf Khan, who retreated into the hills when the Sikhs conquered Peshawar. At this time, Budh Singh Sandhanwalia was stationed in Akora with 4,000 troops. Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi gathered his soldiers for a nocturnal assault. In the early morning of 21 December 1826, when the Sikhs were sleeping in the bitter cold, Allahbakhsh Khan led the Ghazis in their attack and repulsed the Sikhs. Sayyid's forces lost 36 Hindustanis and 46 Kandaharis, including Patna's Maulvi Baqar Ali and their leader Allahbakhsh Khan, while the Sikhs lost between 500 and 700 well-equipped soldiers. The initial assault caused heavy Sikh losses, but the attackers then turned to plundering the camp, allowing the Sikhs to regroup. Budh Singh reorganised his troops, counterattacked, and repulsed the Mujahideen, who withdrew into the hills. == Result ==

Sources differ in their description of the outcome of the battle. Some accounts highlight the success of the Mujahideen’s surprise night attack, during which the Sikh forces took heavy losses. Other accounts state that, despite the initial success of the attack, the Sikh forces under Budh Singh Sandhanwalia regrouped and repulsed the attackers after the Mujahideen turned to plundering the camp, forcing them to withdraw into the hills. Accordingly, the battle has been variously presented in the sources as an early Mujahideen success, a failed attempt to secure a decisive victory, or a tactically mixed engagement in which the surprise assault inflicted substantial Sikh losses but did not produce lasting control of the field. == Aftermath ==

Following the successful guerrilla attack, the Yusufzai and Khattak tribesmen, having suffered very few casualties, returned to the hills. Subsequently, these tribesmen launched numerous guerrilla attacks against the Sikhs. After the battle, Sayyid Ahmad shifted his headquarters to Sitana at the foot of the Mahaban mountains on the western side of the Indus. The success in ambush aided Ahmed Barelvi in gained a wide following in Peshawar. Although the night attack had inflicted substantial losses on the Sikh force, the Mujahideen failed to convert the surprise assault into a decisive victory, and the frontier campaign continued in the following months. ==See also==