Shortly after Elphinstone’s Embassy arrived in Peshawar, Shah Mahmoud and the Barakzai rebels seized the southern Afghan capital of Kandahar. A month later, on 17 April 1809, just as Elphinstone and Shuja were finalising the wording of their treaty, the rebels captured Kabul itself. They then made preparations to attack Shah Shuja in Peshawar. The situation was made more critical by the fact that the bulk of Shuja’s army was away fighting another rebellion in Kashmir, and around the same time as the news came of the loss of Kabul, reports began to arrive that all was not well with the Kashmir
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