Jamrud

Jamrud, town in the Khyber Agency of Peshawar Division, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, lying 1,512 feet (461 metres) above sea level at the entrance to the Khyber Pass. It is connected by road and rail with Peshawar and with Landi Kotal through the pass by the Afghan border. Noted for its fort, built with 10-foot- (3-metre-) thick walls c. 1836 by the Sikh Hari Singh Nalwa, one of Ranjit Singh’s generals, it was originally named Fatehgarh to commemorate the Sikh victory over the disunited tribes. The fort gained importance as a British frontier outpost in the Second Afghan War (1878–79) and was the British base of operations during the Tīrāh campaign (1897–98), when the Pashtun Afrīdī rose in a religious war. Jamrud is a collecting station for the Khyber tolls, and it has several marble quarries.