Pervez Musharraf

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former president, died at age 79 in Dubai on Sunday after a long illness, according to a statement by the Pakistani ...

Bitterness and disappointment from Kargil in both Washington (for the dangerous escalation the intervention represented) and Pakistan (for the United States having refused to support Pakistan) led to a strategic falling-out between the United States and Pakistan. Just like his contrition, and his promises of uniting and reforming the nation. Rather, it was the Kargil War of 1999—a military entanglement that his supporters laud for its tactical robustness, yet whose strategic cost Pakistan continues to bear to this day. In the nearly decade and a half between his resignation in 2008 and his death, Musharraf showed little capacity for reflection or remorse. [Bush understandably praised Musharraf](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/the-presidents-news-conference-with-president-pervez-musharraf-pakistan-0) for helping to fight his war, calling Musharraf “a leader with great courage and vision.” But for Pakistan, the fruits of that relationship were ruinous. The tipping point probably came in 2006 when Nawab Akbar Bugti, a onetime government minister in Islamabad and former chief minister of the province, was killed in a standoff with the military. Musharraf came to be seen as a star officer and became a member of the elite Special Services Group of commandos in the Pakistan Army. In 1998, Musharraf was appointed head of the armed forces, only to be fired in October 1999 when he was traveling abroad. For the first few years after it was enacted, the ordinance and the new systems it created seemed to be improving those services across the country. In 2006, he became the first foreign head of state to appear on At age 18, Musharraf joined the Pakistan Military Academy, from which he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1964. When Musharraf took charge after a military coup in October 1999, Pakistan was not dissimilar from its neighbors China and India—countries with large populations but little economic vitality at the time.

After seizing power in a coup, Musharraf quickly became a vital ally to the United States as it hunted down al Qaeda's leaders after the 9/11 attacks.

Joint U.S.-Pakistani operations on Pakistani soil after 9/11 led to the arrests of dozens of leading al Qaeda figures, including ringleader Incensed by rumors, many of which proved later to be factual, Sharif tried to assert civilian control by firing Musharraf while he was flying back to Pakistan after his visit to Sri Lanka. efforts to destroy al Qaeda and remove the group's Taliban hosts from power in Afghanistan. military figures while he was head of his own country's armed forces, including Gens. The two countries have long been adversaries, and Musharraf and other Pakistani military commanders viewed Sharif's overtures to India's Hindu nationalist government with extreme suspicion, even hostility. While his cause of death wasn't immediately clear, he was hospitalized last year in Dubai with an incurable condition related to bone marrow cancer. Although Musharraf only really became known on the international stage after backing the U.S. (Shehbaz Sharif, the current prime minister, is Nawaz Sharif's brother.) Pervez Musharraf, whose role as Pakistan's military ruler at the time of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S. A spokeswoman for the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai confirmed his death to The Associated Press. made him a household name, has died at the age of 79. He launched the takeover against the country's democratically elected prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, while aboard a flight returning from Sri Lanka.