Gen. Pervez Musharraf, whose position as Pakistan’s military ruler during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States made him a household figure, has died at the age of 79, according to reports from Islamabad.
The Pakistani Consulate in Dubai confirmed his death to the Associated Press via a spokesperson. While his cause of death wasn’t immediately clear, he was hospitalized last year in Dubai with an incurable disease related to bone marrow malignancy. Additionally, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the Pakistani military confirmed his passing and extended condolences to his family.
Although Musharraf only really became known on the international stage after joining the U.S. in its “war on terror” following the 9/11 attacks, he first grabbed the headlines with a coup that he launched in mid-air.
In 1999, when he was chief of army staff, his military takeover of Pakistan began. He launched the coup against the country’s democratically elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, while aboard a flight returning from Sri Lanka. (The current prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, is Nawaz Sharif’s brother.)
Relations between Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf, whom Sharif himself had nominated as head of the military, had been worsening for months over how to handle relations with neighboring India. Musharraf and other Pakistani military officers viewed Sharif’s overtures to India’s Hindu nationalist administration with considerable mistrust, if not outright hostility, due to the nations’ longstanding animosity.
Incensed by reports, many of which proved subsequently to be genuine, Sharif moved to impose civilian rule by sacking Musharraf as he was traveling back to Pakistan following his visit to Sri Lanka. In addition to being denied permission to land in Pakistan, Musharraf’s plane was instructed to divert to India.
But Musharraf wasn’t having it. He replied by ordering his troops to seize control of the airport where his plane had been supposed to land, and subsequently remove Sharif from office.
The military stayed faithful to Musharraf. Sharif was overthrown, and Musharraf was enthroned as the new de facto president of Pakistan.
In the early aftermath of 9/11, Musharraf delivered a strong denunciation of the attacks and very openly placed his country’s weight behind U.S. efforts to destroy al Qaeda and remove the group’s Taliban hosts from power in Afghanistan.
Musharraf had formed good relationships with numerous prominent U.S. military figures, including Gens. Anthony Zinni, Tommy Franks, and John Abizaid, when he was head of his country’s armed forces. After 9/11, joint U.S.-Pakistani operations on Pakistani land resulted to the arrest of scores of al Qaeda leaders, including the organization’s leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Pakistan also became the primary supply route for the NATO war in Afghanistan, allowing the military alliance to save billions of dollars by avoiding the longer route through Central Asia.
Musharraf survived many al Qaeda murder attempts, but was often blamed for not doing enough to rid Pakistan’s tribal areas of Islamic radicals.
Domestically, Musharraf’s liberalization of the economy and media enabled more moderate forces in Pakistani society to establish themselves over the religious right, which had for decades controlled the country’s politics.
Despite having ruled Pakistan for nearly a decade, Musharraf’s popularity plummeted after a series of scandals. In order to avoid impeachment, he resigned as president in 2008 and went into self-imposed exile, first in London and subsequently in Dubai.
Defying death threats, he dramatically returned to his nation in 2013, intending to reenter politics.
It did not go as planned. In 2019, Musharraf was sentenced to death in absentia on charges of high treason, stemming from his actions after the 1999 coup and for failing to provide adequate security for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. Musharraf left again, embroiled in a legal battle, and in 2019 he was sentenced to death in absentia on these charges.
Later, the death sentence was overturned.
In May 2022, Musharraf was hospitalized in Dubai for amyloidosis, a rare ailment that can cause multiple organ failure due to the accumulation of a deadly protein.
»Former Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has died at the age of 79«
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