Gomal River

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Gomal River (Urdu: دریائے گومل ) is a river in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with its headwaters in the south-east of Ghazni.

The headwater springs of the Gomal's main branch merge near by the fort of Babakarkol in Katawaz, a district inhabited primarily by Kharoti and Suleiman Khel Pashtuns. The Gomal's second branch, the "Second Gomal", joins the main channel about 14 miles below its source ^[1]. The Gomal flows southeast through eastern Ghilzai country for approximately 110 miles before it merges with the Zhob River, it major tributary, near Khajuri Kach.^[2]^[3] It is about 100 miles from the Zhob River junction to the Indus River junction.

Within Pakistan, the Gomal river surrounds South Waziristan agency, forms the boundary between the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan. From South Waziristan , the river enters the Gomal Valley in district Tank NWFP at a place known as Girdavi, Murtuza which is inhabited by the Miani tribe. It is mainly here that the water of Gomal is used to cultivate the lands in Gomal Valley through Zam system (Rod Kohi). The river passes then through the Damaan plain in Kulachi Tehsil and later on through Dera Ismail Khan Tehsil, It then joins the Indus River 20 miles south of Dera Ismail Khan.^[3]

[edit] Notes

^ MacGregor, Charles Metcalfe (1871) Central Asia, pt. 2: A Contribution Toward the Better Knowledge of the Topography, Ethnology, Resources, and History of Afghanistan Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, OCLC 48604589 reprinted by Barbican Publishing Co., Petersfield, England, in 1995, p. 308
^ MacGregor, pp. 308-9
^ ^a ^b Gazetteer of Afghanistan VI (Farah), fourth ed., Calcutta, 1908, p. 238