afghanistanagreements. In 1937 Deutsche Lufthansa began weekly flights to Kabul and
in July 1939, under the Todt Agreement, an Inspector General was sent to
Kabul to oversee all German projects and personnel as well as to advise
the government. By the time the Second World War broke out, around
three hundred German nationals were working in Afghanistan, including
Abwehr agents and members of the Nazi Party.
It was only when the threat of war with Germany loomed that British
officials woke up to the potential threat posed by Germany’s growing influ-
ence in Afghanistan and the possibility that Germany and Italy might
covertly encourage the revolt of the Hajji Mirza ‘Ali, known as the Fakir
of Ipi. 5 This uprising had begun in 1936 when the Fakir, a spiritual affil-
iate of the Hazrat of Chaharbagh, declared jihad against British military
encroachments in Waziristan. Britain sent substantial reinforcements into
the region but was unable to suppress the revolt. Hajji Mirza survived
numerous attempts to kill him in raf bombing raids, which led the British
press to refer to the Fakir as the Scarlet Pimpernel of Waziristan. As far as
the Fakir’s followers were concerned, however, his escapes were a sign of
his miraculous powers.
In 1938 the revolt was complicated by the arrival of Muhammad Sa‘adi
al-Jailani, known as the Shami Pir, in Southern Waziristan. Sa‘adi was a
Syrian from Damascus, a distant relative of Sayyid Hasan Gailani and the
first cousin of Mahmud Tarzi’s daughter, Queen Soraya. When Shami Pir
announced he intended to march on Kabul, depose the Musahiban family
and restore ’Aman Allah Khan to the throne, thousands of Waziris and
Masuds flocked to his banner. He then set out for Khost, where he hoped
the Sulaiman Khel, who had rebelled against the Afghan government’s
attempt to extract customs duties, would join him. raf planes were sent to
bomb the army and dispersed the force with heavy losses before the Shami
Pir could cross the Durand Line. Sir George Cunningham then offered
Jailani £25,000 to return to Syria, which he accepted and so Britain had ‘a
narrow escape from a disaster of the first magnitude’. 6
The British were convinced that Germany was behind the Shami Pir’s
campaign, while the government in Kabul blamed Ghulam Siddiq Charkhi.
There was evidence to justify both suspicions. Al-Jailani, after all, was
related to both the Tarzis and ’Aman Allah Khan by marriage and had
been educated in Germany, where he married a German woman. British
intelligence in Damascus also reported the pir met regularly with Abwehr
agents. More than likely the revolt was the brainchild of Werner Otto von
Hentig, Germany’s most effective Middle Eastern operator and the man
who led Germany’s first mission to Afghanistan.