Ancient period The area was the site of the ancient
Gandhara kingdom of
Apraca from the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE, and a stronghold of the
Aspasioi, a western branch of the
Ashvakas (q.v) of the Sanskrit texts who had earlier offered stubborn resistance to the Macedonian invader
Alexander the Great in 326 BCE. The whole region came under
Kushan control after the conquests of
Kujula Kadphises during the first century CE.
Alexander turned south from Aornus and continued march towards the
Indus, but the greatest surprise during the march came when he neared the town of
Nysa (former name of Bajaur). The local people and even the flora seemed strangely out of place in these mountains. The Nysains placed their dead in cedar coffin in the trees - some of which Alexander accidentally set on fire - and made wine from grapes, unlike other tribes in the area. The Acuphis, the chief man of the city, who has been sent to them along with other thirty leaders, begged him not to harm their towns as they were descendants of settlers that the god
Dionysus placed their generation before. Their prolific ivy, a plant sacred to
Dionysus that nowhere else in the mountain, was proof they were the people blessed by god. Then they were only commanded to give him 300 cavalry, after which he restored their freedom and allow them to live under their own laws, having made Acuphis governor of the city. Alexander took his son and grandson as hostages. He sacrificed there to
Bacchus under this god's others name of
Dionysus. The
Bajaur casket, also called the
Indravarma reliquary, year 63, or sometimes referred to as the Avaca inscription, is an ancient reliquary from the area of Bajaur in ancient
Gandhara, in the present-day Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. It is dated to around 5-6 CE. It proves the involvement of the
Scythian kings of the
Apraca, in particular King Indravarman, in Buddhism. The casket is made of schist.
Mughal period Bajaur massacre In 1518, Babur had invested and conquered the fortress of Bajaur, The Gabar-Kot from Sultan Mir Haider Ali Gabari the Jahangirian Sultan and gone on to conquer
Bhera on the river
Jhelum, a little beyond the salt ranges.
Babur claimed these areas as his own, because they had been part of
Taimur's empire. Hence, "picturing as our own the countries once occupied by the
Turks", he ordered that "there was to be no overrunning or plundering [of the countryside]". It may be noted that this applied to areas which did not offer resistance, because earlier, at Bajaur, where the
Pashtun tribesmen had resisted, he had ordered a general massacre, with their women and children being made captive. Babur justifies this massacre by saying, "the Bajauris were rebels and at enmity with the people of
Islam, and as, by heathenish and hostile customs prevailing in their midst, the very name of Islam was rooted out...". As the Bajauris were rebels and inimical to the people of Islam, the men were subjected to a general massacre and their wives and children were made captive. At a guess, more than 3,000 men met their death. We entered the fort and inspected it. On the walls, in houses, streets and alleys, the dead lay, in what numbers! Those walking around had to jump over the corpses. The Mughal operation, which culminated in the Battle of the Malandari Pass resulted in an Afghan victory and a military embarrassment for Akbar.
Later period Jandol, one of the northern valleys of Bajaur, has ceased to be of political importance since the 19th century, when a previous chief, Umra Khan, failed to appropriate himself Bajaur, Dir and a great part of the Kunar valley. It was the active hostility between the Amir of Kabul (who claimed sovereignty of the same districts) and Umra Khan that led, firstly to the demarcation agreement of 1893 which fixed the boundary of Afghanistan in Kunar; and, secondly, to the invasion of Chitral by Umra Khan (who was no party to the boundary settlement), and the siege of the Chitral fort in 1895. Bajaur was a princely state run by the Nawab of Khar. The last and most prominent Nawab was
Abdul Subhan Khan, who ruled until 1990. During the
Soviet invasion in the 1980s, the area was a critical staging ground for Afghan and local
mujahideen to organise and conduct raids. It had hosted a large population of
Afghan refugees sympathetic to
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Mujahideen leader ideologically close to the Arab militants. During the
War in Afghanistan (2001–2021), the United States believed that militants based in Bajaur, frequently launched attacks on American,
NATO (including the
ISAF and
RSM) and Afghan troops in Afghanistan. == Counterterrorism ==