Alpurai

Alpuri or Alpurai is the capital of Shangla District in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is located at and has an average elevation of 1587 meters. The place has a government degree college and District headquarters hospital.ClimateWith a mild and generally warm and temperate climate, Alpuri features a humid subtropical climate (Cfa) under the Köppen climate classification. The average temperature in Alpuri is 15.8 °C, while the annual precipitation averages 1040 mm. Even in the driest months, there is a lot of precipitation. November is the driest month with 25 mm of precipitation, while July, the wettest month, has an average precipitation of 155 mm.July is the hottest month of the year with an average temperature of 25.4 °C. The coldest month January has an average temperature of 4.5 °C.2007 fightingOn 13 November 2007 militants of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi ("Movement for the Enforcement of Sharia") from neighbouring Swat were reported to have captured Alpuri district headquarters. This seems to have been part of a general push into Shangla District. The local police fled without resisting the advancing militant force which, in addition to local militants, also included Uzbek, Tajik and Chechen volunteers.The militants vacated the town again on November 22/23, with government troops approaching. Fighting in Matta and Kabal areas of Swat and parts of Malakand continued, and the Alpuri area was by and large cut off from the outside. The militants' offensive was so unexpected that residents in Shangla were reporting food shortages, as they had no time to stock up on supplies.