Pervez Musharraf, Former Military Ruler Of Pakistan, Dies At 79

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized energy in a cold coup and later led a reluctant Pakistan into aiding the U.S. battle in Afghanistan in opposition to the Taliban, has died, officers stated Sunday. He was 79.

Musharraf, a former particular forces commando, grew to become president by the final of a string of navy coups that roiled Pakistan since its founding amid the bloody 1947 partition of India. He dominated the nuclear-armed state after his 1999 coup by tensions with India, an atomic proliferation scandal and an Islamic extremist insurgency. He stepped down in 2008 whereas dealing with attainable impeachment.

Later in life, Musharraf lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai to keep away from felony prices, regardless of trying a political comeback in 2012. But it wasn’t to be as his poor well being plagued his final years. He maintained a soldier’s fatalism after avoiding a violent loss of life that all the time gave the impression to be stalking him as Islamic militants twice focused him for assassination.

“I have confronted death and defied it several times in the past because destiny and fate have always smiled on me,” Musharraf as soon as wrote. “I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat.”

Musharraf’s household introduced in June 2022 that he had been hospitalized for weeks in Dubai whereas affected by amyloidosis, an incurable situation that sees proteins construct up within the physique’s organs. They later stated he additionally wanted entry to the drug daratumumab, which is used to deal with a number of myeloma. That bone marrow most cancers may cause amyloidosis.

Shazia Siraj, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai, confirmed his loss of life and stated diplomats have been offering assist to his household.

The Pakistani navy additionally supplied its condolences as did Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the youthful brother of the prime minister Musharraf overthrew in 1999.

“May God give his family the courage to bear this loss,” Sharif stated.

Pakistan, a nation almost twice the dimensions of California alongside the Arabian Sea, is now residence to 220 million individuals. But it could be its border with Afghanistan that might quickly draw the U.S.′s consideration and dominate Musharraf’s life a little bit underneath two years after he seized energy.

Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden launched the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults from Afghanistan, sheltered by the nation’s Taliban rulers. Musharraf knew what would come subsequent.

“America was sure to react violently, like a wounded bear,” he wrote in his autobiography. “If the perpetrator turned out to be al-Qaida, then that wounded bear would come charging straight toward us.”

By Sept. 12, then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell informed Musharraf that Pakistan would both be “with us or against us.” Musharraf stated one other American official threatened to bomb Pakistan ”again into the Stone Age” if it selected the latter.

Musharraf selected the previous. A month later, he stood by then-President George W. Bush on the Waldorf Astoria in New York to declare Pakistan’s unwavering assist to battle with the United States in opposition to “terrorism in all its forms wherever it exists.”

Pakistan grew to become an important transit level for NATO provides headed to landlocked Afghanistan. That was the case though Pakistan’s highly effective Inter-Services Intelligence company had backed the Taliban after it swept into energy in Afghanistan in 1994. Prior to that, the CIA and others funneled cash and arms by the ISI to Islamic fighters battling the Eighties Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan noticed Taliban fighters flee over the border again into Pakistan, together with bin Laden, whom the U.S. would kill in 2011 at a compound in Abbottabad. They regrouped and the offshoot Pakistani Taliban emerged, starting a yearslong insurgency within the mountainous border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The CIA started flying armed Predator drones from Pakistan with Musharraf’s blessing, utilizing an airstrip constructed by the founding president of the United Arab Emirates for falconing in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The program helped beat again the militants however noticed over 400 strikes in Pakistan alone kill not less than 2,366 individuals — together with 245 civilians, based on the Washington-based New America Foundation assume tank.

Though Pakistan underneath Musharraf launched these operations, the militants nonetheless thrived as billions of American {dollars} flowed into the nation. That led to suspicion that also plagues the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.

“After 9/11, then President Musharraf made a strategic shift to abandon the Taliban and support the U.S. in the war on terror, but neither side believes the other has lived up to expectations flowing from that decision,” a 2009 U.S. cable from then-Ambassador Anne Patterson revealed by WikiLeaks stated, describing what had grow to be the diplomatic equal of a loveless marriage.

“The relationship is one of co-dependency we grudgingly admit — Pakistan knows the U.S. cannot afford to walk away; the U.S. knows Pakistan cannot survive without our support.”

But it could be Musharraf’s life on the road. Militants tried to assassinate him twice in 2003 by concentrating on his convoy, first with a bomb planted on a bridge after which with automobile bombs. That second assault noticed Musharraf’s car lifted into the air by the blast earlier than touching the bottom once more. It raced to security on simply its rims, Musharraf pulling a Glock pistol in case he wanted to battle his method out.

It wasn’t till his spouse, Sehba, noticed the automobile lined in gore that the dimensions of the assault dawned on him.

“She is always calm in the face of danger,” he recounted. But then, “she was screaming uncontrollably, hysterically.”

Born Aug. 11, 1943, in New Delhi, India, Musharraf was the center son of a diplomat. His household joined tens of millions of different Muslims in fleeing westward when predominantly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan break up throughout independence from Britain in 1947. The partition noticed tons of of 1000’s of individuals killed in riots and preventing.

Musharraf entered the Pakistani military at age 18 and made his profession there as Islamabad fought three wars in opposition to India. He’d launch his personal try at capturing territory within the disputed Himalayan area of Kashmir in 1999 simply earlier than seizing energy from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif had ordered Musharraf’s dismissal as the military chief flew residence from a go to to Sri Lanka and denied his aircraft touchdown rights in Pakistan, even because it ran low on gasoline. On the bottom, the military took management and after he landed Musharraf took cost.

Yet as ruler, Musharraf almost reached a cope with India on Kashmir, based on U.S. diplomats on the time. He additionally labored towards a rapprochement with Pakistan’s longtime rival.

Another main scandal emerged underneath his rule when the world found that famed Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, lengthy related to the nation’s atomic bomb, had been promoting centrifuge designs and different secrets and techniques to international locations together with Iran, Libya and North Korea, making tens of tens of millions of {dollars}. Those designs helped Pyongyang to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, whereas centrifuges from Khan’s designs nonetheless spin in Iran amid the collapse of Tehran’s nuclear cope with world powers.

Musharraf stated he suspected Khan but it surely wasn’t till 2003 when then-CIA director George Tenet confirmed him detailed plans for a Pakistani centrifuge that the scientist had been promoting that he realized the severity of what occurred.

Khan would confess on state tv in 2004 and Musharraf would pardon him, although he’d be confined to accommodate arrest after that.

“For years, A.Q.’s lavish lifestyle and tales of his wealth, properties, corrupt practices and financial magnanimity at state expense were generally all too well known in Islamabad’s social and government circles,” Musharraf later wrote. “However, these were largely ignored. … In hindsight that neglect was apparently a serious mistake.”

Musharraf’s home assist ultimately eroded. He held flawed elections in late 2002 — solely after altering the structure to offer himself sweeping powers to sack the prime minister and parliament. He then reneged on a promise to face down as military chief by the top of 2004.

Militant anger towards Musharraf elevated in 2007 when he ordered a raid in opposition to the Red Mosque in downtown Islamabad. It had grow to be a sanctuary for militants against Pakistan’s assist of the Afghan battle. The weeklong operation killed over 100 individuals.

The incident severely broken Musharraf’s repute amongst on a regular basis residents and earned him the timeless hatred of militants who launched a sequence of punishing assaults following the raid.

Fearing the judiciary would block his continued rule, Musharraf fired the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. That triggered mass demonstrations.

Under strain at residence and overseas to revive civilian rule, Musharraf stepped down as military chief. Though he gained one other five-year presidential time period, Musharraf confronted a serious disaster following former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007 at a marketing campaign rally as she sought to grow to be prime minister for the third time.

The public suspected Musharraf’s hand within the killing, which he denied. A later United Nations report acknowledged the Pakistani Taliban was a essential suspect in her slaying however warned that parts of Pakistan’s intelligence companies might have been concerned.

Musharraf resigned as president in August 2008 after ruling coalition officers threatened to have him impeached for imposing emergency rule and firing judges.

“I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes,” Musharraf, struggling together with his feelings, stated in an hourlong televised tackle.

Afterward, he lived overseas in Dubai and London, trying a political comeback in 2012. But Pakistan as an alternative arrested the previous basic and put him underneath home arrest. He confronted treason allegations over the Supreme Court debacle and different prices stemming from the Red Mosque raid and Bhutto’s assassination.

The picture of Musharraf being handled as a felony suspect shocked Pakistan, the place navy generals lengthy have been thought of above the legislation. Pakistan allowed him to go away the nation on bail to Dubai in 2016 for medical therapy and he remained there after dealing with a later-overturned loss of life sentence.

But it urged Pakistan could also be prepared to show a nook in its historical past of navy rule.

“Musharraf’s resignation is a sad yet familiar story of hubris, this time in a soldier who never became a good politician,” wrote Patterson, the U.S. ambassador, on the time.

“The good news is that the demonstrated strength of institutions that brought Musharraf down — the media, free elections and civil society — also provide some hope for Pakistan’s future. It was these institutions that ironically became much stronger under his government.”

Associated Press author Rebecca Santana contributed to this report. Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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