The Shinwari tribe are descended from the Kasi Pashtun tribe settled in the southern districts of Nangarhar Province, in Haska Meyna, Achin, Rodat, Bati Kot, Kot, Chaprahar, Shinwar, Dor Baba and Nazian districts.

A major portion of the tribe is centered in Jalalabad and Parwan province of Afghanistan, and Khyber Pass, Pakistan.

There is also a significant minority of the tribe settled in Kohat and Hangu (Jangal Khel, Haji Abad, Mohallah Sangirh), Pakistan, a settlement 60 km south of Peshawar.

The famous Khyber Pass, at 1,180 meters (3,870 ft.) ASL, is the gateway to Afghanistan through the Kuh-e Sefid range.

Average annual rainfall over the Khyber Agency is 15 to 16 inches[2] The elders of the Shinwari tribe in Nangarhar signed a pact, uniting against the Taliban.

Further, reports suggested the Shinwari were against Taliban interference with their traditional smuggling routes across the Pakistani border.

During the late 1928 riots, the Shinwari tribe were the first to openly rebel against king Amanullah Khan's imposition of various new laws, including the requirement to wear European dress, the rule that required them to send a quota of their daughters to Kabul for education and the impositions of taxes (they had never previously paid tax).

Amanullah responded by using his fledgling Air Force, including Soviet pilots, to bomb the Shinwaris.

The use of foreign "infidels" to subjugate Muslims roused other tribes to revolt and the country descended into what would become the 1929 Afghan Civil War.