WAZIRISTAN

geographic region of the North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. It is a barren, mountainous country occupied by part of the Sulaiman Range and bounded north by the Kurram River, south by the Gumal River, and west by Afghanistan. The region's rivers, which flow toward the Indus River, provide the main approaches to the interior. The Pashtun inhabitants of Waziristan are divided into two principal groups, the Darwish, or Wazir, the main tribe in the north, and the Mahsud, the dominant tribe in the south. Waziristan tract was gradually brought under British political administration beginning in 1892; it was the scene of several large-scale British military operations against the tribes from the late 1800s until Pakistani independence in 1947.