dreams melted into air, 1919–29the rebels’ forward position at Karez Darwish in the Logar, while air force
planes, piloted by Russians and Germans, bombed the front lines. By early
October Gardez was once more in government hands, and two months later
tribal leaders from Khost came to Kabul under a pledge of safe conduct to
sue for peace, only for them to be thrown in jail. Mullah-i Lang and three
of his sons were eventually captured and blown from the muzzles of guns.
In all, a hundred rebels were executed. Shah Wali also burnt and looted
more than three hundred houses in Khost. When he returned to Kabul
he brought with him six hundred female captives who were distributed
among various Muhammadzais as war booty. As for ‘Abd al-Karim, he fled
back across the Indian frontier only to be arrested by the British author-
ities and exiled to Burma. Two years later he committed suicide. Mullah-i
Lang’s rebellion had nearly toppled the king. Even though the revolt was
eventually put down, ’Aman Allah Khan was weakened militarily, while his
agenda for constitutional change had been hijacked by Islamizers. If this
was not bad enough, in order to pay for the war the king had to increase
taxation and cut public expenditure.
The Islamization of the Constitution had unexpected repercussions
for Kabul’s small community of European advisers. At the end of July
1924 Dario Piperno, an Italian engineer, shot dead a policeman sent to
arrest him for a minor offence. 40 He was tried and sentenced to death by a
shari‘a court, only for the dead man’s next of kin to waive his right to qisas,
the right to personally execute the murderer, and accepted blood money
instead, for he had no wish to ‘soil his hands with the blood of a heathen’. 41
According to both Islamic jurisprudence and Pushtun customary law, once
the blood money was paid, Piperno ought to have been freed. However,
the king confirmed the death sentence and the following year Piperno
was hanged in secret without the Italian embassy being given prior notice.
Piperno’s execution was a diplomatic disaster. All the Western
powers with representation in Kabul submitted formal protests, while
Italy demanded an apology and the return of the blood money. When
neither was forthcoming, Italy froze the bank accounts of Afghan minis-
ters, suspended all aid and recalled its ambassador. Just as the envoy was
about to leave, however, a junior official of the Foreign Ministry presented
him with a letter of apology and a pledge to return the blood money, and
the confrontation ended. The Piperno Affair though cost Afghanistan a
seat in the League of Nations, for Britain cited his trial and execution as
justification for vetoing the government’s application for membership. This
time the whipping boy for the king’s failures was Kabul’s chief of police,
who was sacked.