The conflict had its roots in the Mughal war of succession. While Aurangzeb fought his brothers for the imperial throne between 1658 and 1659, the Ahom Kingdom seized the opportunity to reclaim Kamrup, the strategic gateway between Bengal and Assam. Once Aurangzeb consolidated power, he responded by appointing Mir Jumla II - a general who had proven his loyalty during the civil war in the Deccan - as Governor of Bengal, with a mandate to punish the Ahoms. By November 1661, Mir Jumla was ready. His official news correspondent framed the campaign as "a holy war with the infidels of Assam," and the force he assembled reflected that ambition: 12,000 cavalry, 30,000 infantry, and a river fleet of hundreds of vessels including those formidable ghurabs.

The Mughal advance up the Brahmaputra was methodical, with strategic forts like Jogigopa subdued before the fleet moved on. At Kaliabor, in the Nowgong district, the landscape changed. Hills pressed close to the river's northern bank, forcing the Mughal army to move away from the waterline and out of contact with its fleet. For the Ahoms, this separation was the opening they had been waiting for. The Mughal fleet was temporarily isolated, and its admiral, Ibn Husain, was inexplicably absent with some of his ships. The conditions for an Ahom counterattack looked as favorable as they would ever get.

The Ahom strike came, and it broke against Mughal naval engineering. The ghurabs and other warships were built differently from the Ahom fleet - heavier, better armored, designed for the kind of close-quarters river combat that characterized warfare on the Brahmaputra. A contingent of European vessels accompanying the Mughals added further firepower. The Ahom attack proved unsuccessful, and what followed was devastating. Mughal soldiers pursued the retreating Ahom crews with orders to show no mercy. Of the Ahom sailors who escaped the river, fifty made it back to their own lines - only to face severe punishment from their king for the failure. The Ahom admiral himself was captured despite attempting to flee in disguise, though he was later released at the intercession of Mir Jumla's senior officers.

The day after the battle, the remaining 300 Ahom vessels sat anchored about a mile from Mir Jumla's camp, abandoned by their crews. Mughal artillery sank them where they floated. The Ahom navy - the kingdom's primary means of projecting power along the Brahmaputra - was finished. Mir Jumla had achieved what he described as his most decisive victory in the Assam campaign. The consequences were immediate: the Ahoms concluded they could not stop the invasion and abandoned their capital at Gharaghat, which Mir Jumla's army plundered. But the Mughals' triumph carried its own seeds of failure. The monsoon season descended, subjecting the occupying army to the harsh conditions of an Assamese rainy season. The war would drag on for another year before ending with the Treaty of Ghilajharighat - a peace that reflected exhaustion on both sides rather than outright conquest.