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EX-KING OF AFGHANISTAN

A side-issue was the rising of the ever-ready bands of
marauders and brigands. One such band, headed by a
notorious robber and murderer named Ayab Khan, took,
as their excuse for wholesale robbery, the nationalisa-
tion decrees issued by the King. Out came all their old
battle-cries. They protested once more that, being
border tribesmen, they owed no more than formal alle-
giance to Amanullah. Eventually they caine out into
the open with public protests, and attacked and killed
a Government servant, later turning on the garrison at
Kahi and capturing the fort. Amanullah boiled with
anger, and sent down his aeroplanes, piloted by Rus-
sians, who showed their skill and efficiency by dropping
well-aimed bombs on the homes and villages of the out-
laws, inflicting terrific damage and spreading slaughter
in a thoroughly modern and Western manner.

The rebellion was well started, but it was not till well
into November that it was generally recognised outside
Afghanistan that this was a real movement against
Amanullah5 s Westernisation-by-force.

Minor grievances of course entered into the dispute.
Each tribe in the south had its own private complaint.
One was shared between the Shias and Sunnis, two of
the most warlike and independent sects in the whole
country, who claimed aggressively the right to settle
their own little differences without the interference of
the State. Apparently some of Amanullah's officials
had taken it upon themselves to involve the Govern-
ment in purely private squabbles, pushing the long arm
of the law into the hills and checking family feuds, and
generally complicating the whole business between the
two tribes when they met in honourable combat. Such
conduct could not be tolerated by worthy Afghan fight-
ing men, and the peacemaker suffered the usual fate of
his kind.

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