General Paolo Crescenzo Martino Avitabile (25 October 1791 – 28 March 1850), also known as Abu Tabela (Hindko: ابوتبیلا), was an Italian soldier, mercenary and adventurer.

A peasant's son born in Agerola, in the province of Napoli near Sorrento (in southern Italy), he served in the Neapolitan militia during the Napoleonic wars.

In 1820 he joined the army of the Shah of Persia, attaining the rank of colonel and receiving several decorations before returning to Italy in 1824.

[1] He remained in the Punjab until the assassination of Maharaja Sher Singh in 1843, after which he retired to Italy, where his rank as a general was confirmed and he was knighted.

[2][1] The young Avitabile served in the local levies of the Kingdom of Naples between 1807 and 1809, when he joined the artillery of the regular army.

He remained in this employment for six years, during which period he rose to the rank of khan and a grade of colonel in the Persian army.

Avitabile boasted: "When I marched into Peshawar, I sent on in advance a number of wooden posts which my men erected around the walls of the city.

The men scoffed at them and laughed at the madness of the feringhee [a disparaging local language term for Westerners], and harder still when my men came in and laid coils of rope at the foot of the posts...However, when my preparations were completed and they found one fine morning dangling from these posts, fifty of the worse characters in Peshawar, they thought different.

[3]With a ruthless, at times brutal, style of government, Avitabile established order in the province where he became known as Abu Tabela.

In times of unrest, law-abiding citizens send a small wish for the return of an Abu Tabela to finally re-impose law and order.

The control of this strategic position brought him in contact with the British army during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42), where he was able to render vital assistance.

The following legal battle over his inheritance, and the many distant relatives asserting their claims, made Avitabile's cousin something of a byword in Italy.