Federally Administered Tribal Areas in the context of "Kurram District"

The Indo-Pakistani war of 1947–1948, also known as the first Kashmir war, was a war fought between India and Pakistan over the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir from 1947 to 1948. It was the first of four Indo-Pakistani wars between the two newly independent nations. Pakistan precipitated the war a few weeks after its independence by launching tribal lashkar (militias) from Waziristan, in an effort to capture Kashmir and to preempt the possibility of its ruler joining India.

Hari Singh, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, was facing an uprising by his Muslim subjects in Poonch, and lost control in portions of the western districts. On 22 October 1947, Pakistan's Pashtun tribal militias crossed the border of the state. These local tribal militias and irregular Pakistani forces moved to take the capital city of Srinagar, but upon reaching Baramulla, they took to plunder and stalled. Maharaja Hari Singh made a plea to India for assistance, and help was offered, but it was subject to his signing of an Instrument of Accession to India.

The North-West Frontier Province (abbr. NWFP), commonly known as Sarhad (lit. 'Frontier'), was a province of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955 and from 1970 to 2010; and prior, a province of British India from its establishment in 1901 to Pakistan's independence in 1947. It was established from the north-western districts of British Punjab during the British Raj. Following the referendum in 1947 to join either Pakistan or India, the province voted hugely in favour of joining Pakistan and it acceded accordingly on 14 August 1947. It was dissolved to form a unified province of West Pakistan in 1955 upon promulgation of One Unit Scheme and was reestablished in 1970. It was known by this name until 19 April 2010, when it was dissolved and redesignated as the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa following the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan.

The province covered an area of 70,709 km (27,301 sq mi), including much of the current Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province but excluding the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the former princely states of Amb, Chitral, Dir, Phulra and Swat. Its capital was the city of Peshawar, and the province was composed of six divisions (Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Hazara, Kohat, Mardan, and Peshawar Division; Malakand was later added as the seventh division). Until 1947, the province was bordered by five princely states to the north, the minor states of the Gilgit Agency to the northeast, the province of Punjab to the east and the province of Balochistan to the south. The Kingdom of Afghanistan lay to the northwest, with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas forming a buffer zone between the two.

The Ministry of Kashmir Affairs, Gilgit-Baltistan, and States & Frontier Regions (Urdu: وزارت امور کشمیر، گلگت بلتستان و ریاستیں و سرحدی امور, romanized: vizārat-e-umūr kaśmīr, gilgit baltistān va riyāsateṅ va sarḥadī umūr) is a ministry of the Government of Pakistan. It handles the regional affairs of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan as both territories of Pakistani-administered Kashmir do not have regular provincial status within Pakistan due to political circumstances revolving around the long-running Kashmir conflict. In 2025 the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions, which handled the tribal and frontier regions of the country was merged into it.

The Afrīdī (Pashto: اپريدی Aprīdai, plur. اپريدي Aprīdī; Urdu: آفریدی) are a Pashtun tribe present mostly in tribal areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

The Afridis are most dominant in the Spin Ghar range west of Peshawar in Tribal areas of modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, covering most of the Khyber Pass and Maidan in Tirah which is their Native Tribal Territory. They are the closest to Orakzai in their language, culture and geographic areas.

Uzbeks are a small community in Pakistan. They were one of the first Karluk tribes to arrive in the modern-day region of Pakistan; they ruled the area of Pakhli (modern-day Hazara) for over 200 years from 1472 to 1703. Uzbeks form a significant minority group in the regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA.

There are many Uzbek immigrants in Pakistan from Central Asian countries, mainly Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Around 2.3% of the Afghans residing in Pakistan are ethnic Uzbeks. The Afghan War drove them to Pakistan. In 1981, many Afghan Uzbek refugees in Pakistan moved to Turkey to join the existing communities based in Kayseri, İzmir, Ankara and Zeytinburnu. The Uzbeks can be found mainly in north-west Pakistan, comprising the areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (in particular Peshawar), Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan. Additionally, Uzbek militants allied to al-Qaeda from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Islamic Jihad Union are believed to reside in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Their number at their height was predicted to be anywhere from 500 to 5,000. Now, only a few hundred foreign militants of various nationalities are thought to remain in Pakistan – the majority either having been killed by the Pakistani military's Zarb-e-Azb operation launched in 2014 or shifting to other theaters of jihadist conflicts, such as Syria.

West Pakistan was the western province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1970, covering the territory of present-day Pakistan. Its land borders were with Afghanistan, India and Iran, with a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman in the Arabian Sea.

Following its independence from British rule, the new Dominion of Pakistan was physically separated into two exclaves, with the western and eastern wings geographically separated from each other by India. The western wing of Pakistan comprised three governor's provinces (the North-West Frontier, West Punjab and Sind), one chief commissioner's province (Baluchistan) along with the Baluchistan States Union, several independent princely states (notably Bahawalpur, Chitral, Dir, Hunza, Khairpur and Swat), the Karachi Federal Capital Territory, and the autonomous tribal areas adjoining the North-West Frontier Province. The eastern wing of the new country—known as East Pakistan—comprised the single province of East Bengal (which included the former Assamese district of Sylhet and the Chittagong Hill Tracts).