Chakdara Fort

Chakdara, Pakistan, Pakistan

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Chakdari Fort is a historic military fort in Chakdara, a city in Lower Dir District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, situated on a rocky hill overlooking the Swat River at a strategic point near the confluence of the Swat and Panjkora rivers and the entrance to Swat and Lower Dir districts.

The site was first fortified by the Mughals in 1586 under Emperor Akbar, but the current structure was built by the British in 1896 on the same commanding ridge, replacing and strengthening an earlier Mughal-Hindu Shahi fort. Chakdara Fort became famous for its role in the 1897 Battle of Chakdara, when a small British and Indian force, including many Sikh soldiers.

Defended the fort against a large Pashtun tribal lashkar for nearly a week during the Siege of Malakand; the young Winston Churchill, then a war correspondent, witnessed the relief of the fort and later described the siege in his book The Story of the Malakand Field Force.