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A spokeswoman for the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai confirmed his death to The Associated Press. 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. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the Pakistani military also confirmed his death and offered condolences to his family.
Although Musharraf only really became known on the international stage after backing the U.S. in its "war on terror" following the 9/11 attacks, he first grabbed the limelight with a coup that he launched in mid-air.
Relations between Nawaz Sharif and Musharraf, whom Sharif himself had appointed as head of the military, had been deteriorating for months over how to handle relations with neighboring India. 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.
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. To add insult to injury, Musharraf's plane was ordered to divert to India after being refused permission to land in Pakistan.
But Musharraf wasn't having it. He retaliated by ordering his troops to seize control of the airport where his plane had been due to land, and subsequently remove Sharif from power.
Musharraf's troops remained loyal to him. Sharif was deposed, and Musharraf installed himself as Pakistan's new de facto president.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Musharraf issued a strong condemnation of the attacks and very publicly threw 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 developed strong relations with several senior U.S. military figures while he was head of his own country's armed forces, including Gens. Anthony Zinni, Tommy Franks and John Abizaid. Joint U.S.-Pakistani operations on Pakistani soil after 9/11 led to the arrests of dozens of leading al Qaeda figures, including ringleader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Pakistan also became the main supply route for the NATO operation in Afghanistan, saving the military alliance billions of dollars by allowing it to avoid supplying its troops via a longer route through Central Asia.
Musharraf survived multiple al Qaeda assassination attempts, but was continually criticized for not doing enough to purge Islamic extremists from Pakistan's tribal areas.
Domestically, Musharraf's policies of liberalizing the economy and media helped more moderate forces in Pakistani society assert themselves over the religious right, who had dominated the country's politics for decades.
However, after ruling Pakistan for almost a decade, Musharraf's popularity declined sharply after a series of scandals. He resigned as president in 2008 to avoid impeachment and went into self-imposed exile, first in London and then in Dubai.
Defying death threats, he dramatically returned to his country in 2013, hoping to reenter politics.
It didn't go as he'd hoped. Musharraf left again, embroiled in a legal battle, and then in 2019, he 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.
The death sentence was later annulled.
Credit: cbsnews.com. You can read the original article here.
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup and later led a reluctant Pakistan into aiding the U.S. war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, has died, officials said Sunday. He was 79.
Musharraf, a former special forces commando, became president through the last of a string of military coups that roiled Pakistan since its founding amid the bloody 1947 partition of India. He ruled the nuclear-armed state after his 1999 coup through tensions with India, an atomic proliferation scandal and an Islamic extremist insurgency. He stepped down in 2008 while facing possible impeachment.
Later in life, Musharraf lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai to avoid criminal charges, despite attempting a political comeback in 2012. But it wasn't to be as his poor health plagued his last years. He maintained a soldier's fatalism after avoiding a violent death that always seemed to be stalking him as Islamic militants twice targeted 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 once wrote. "I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat."
Musharraf's family announced in June 2022 that he had been hospitalized for weeks in Dubai while suffering from amyloidosis, an incurable condition that sees proteins build up in the body's organs. They later said he also needed access to the drug daratumumab, which is used to treat multiple myeloma. That bone marrow cancer can cause amyloidosis.
Shazia Siraj, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai, confirmed his death and said diplomats were providing support to his family.
The Pakistani military also offered its condolences as did Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, the younger brother of the prime minister Musharraf overthrew in 1999.
"May God give his family the courage to bear this loss," Sharif said.
Pakistan, a nation nearly twice the size of California along the Arabian Sea, is now home to 220 million people. But it would be its border with Afghanistan that would soon draw the U.S.'s attention and dominate Musharraf's life a little under two years after he seized power.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden launched the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from Afghanistan, sheltered by the country's Taliban rulers. Musharraf knew what would come next.
"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 told Musharraf that Pakistan would either be "with us or against us." Musharraf said another American official threatened to bomb Pakistan "back into the Stone Age" if it chose the latter.
Musharraf chose the former. A month later, he stood by then-President George W. Bush at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to declare Pakistan's unwavering support to fight with the United States against "terrorism in all its forms wherever it exists."
Pakistan became a crucial transit point for NATO supplies headed to landlocked Afghanistan. That was the case even though Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency had backed the Taliban after it swept into power in Afghanistan in 1994. Prior to that, the CIA and others funnelled money and arms through the ISI to Islamic fighters battling the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan saw Taliban fighters flee over the border back into Pakistan, including bin Laden, whom the U.S. would kill in 2011 at a compound in Abbottabad. They regrouped and the offshoot Pakistani Taliban emerged, beginning a yearslong insurgency in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The CIA began flying armed Predator drones from Pakistan with Musharraf's blessing, using an airstrip built by the founding president of the United Arab Emirates for falconing in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The program helped beat back the militants but saw over 400 strikes in Pakistan alone kill at least 2,366 people -- including 245 civilians, according to the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank.
Though Pakistan under Musharraf launched these operations, the militants still thrived as billions of American dollars flowed into the nation. That led to suspicion that still 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 published by WikiLeaks said, describing what had become the diplomatic equivalent 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 would be Musharraf's life on the line. Militants tried to assassinate him twice in 2003 by targeting his convoy, first with a bomb planted on a bridge and then with car bombs. That second attack saw Musharraf's vehicle lifted into the air by the blast before touching the ground again. It raced to safety on just its rims, Musharraf pulling a Glock pistol in case he needed to fight his way out.
It wasn't until his wife, Sehba, saw the car covered in gore that the scale of the attack 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 middle son of a diplomat. His family joined millions of other Muslims in fleeing westward when predominantly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan split during independence from Britain in 1947. The partition saw hundreds of thousands of people killed in riots and fighting.
Musharraf entered the Pakistani army at age 18 and made his career there as Islamabad fought three wars against India. He'd launch his own attempt at capturing territory in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir in 1999 just before seizing power from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif had ordered Musharraf's dismissal as the army chief flew home from a visit to Sri Lanka and denied his plane landing rights in Pakistan, even as it ran low on fuel. On the ground, the army took control and after he landed Musharraf took charge.
Yet as ruler, Musharraf nearly reached a deal with India on Kashmir, according to U.S. diplomats at the time. He also worked toward a rapprochement with Pakistan's longtime rival.
Another major scandal emerged under his rule when the world discovered that famed Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, long associated with the country's atomic bomb, had been selling centrifuge designs and other secrets to countries including Iran, Libya and North Korea, making tens of millions of dollars. Those designs helped Pyongyang to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, while centrifuges from Khan's designs still spin in Iran amid the collapse of Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.
Musharraf said he suspected Khan but it wasn't until 2003 when then-CIA director George Tenet showed him detailed plans for a Pakistani centrifuge that the scientist had been selling that he realized the severity of what happened.
Khan would confess on state television in 2004 and Musharraf would pardon him, though he'd be confined to house 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 domestic support eventually eroded. He held flawed elections in late 2002 -- only after changing the constitution to give himself sweeping powers to sack the prime minister and parliament. He then reneged on a promise to stand down as army chief by the end of 2004.
Militant anger toward Musharraf increased in 2007 when he ordered a raid against the Red Mosque in downtown Islamabad. It had become a sanctuary for militants opposed to Pakistan's support of the Afghan war. The weeklong operation killed over 100 people.
The incident severely damaged Musharraf's reputation among everyday citizens and earned him the undying hatred of militants who launched a series of punishing attacks 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 pressure at home and abroad to restore civilian rule, Musharraf stepped down as army chief. Though he won another five-year presidential term, Musharraf faced a major crisis following former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination in December 2007 at a campaign rally as she sought to become prime minister for the third time.
The public suspected Musharraf's hand in the killing, which he denied. A later United Nations report acknowledged the Pakistani Taliban was a main suspect in her slaying but warned that elements of Pakistan's intelligence services may have been involved.
Musharraf resigned as president in August 2008 after ruling coalition officials 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 with his emotions, said in an hourlong televised address.
Afterward, he lived abroad in Dubai and London, attempting a political comeback in 2012. But Pakistan instead arrested the former general and put him under house arrest. He faced treason allegations over the Supreme Court debacle and other charges stemming from the Red Mosque raid and Bhutto's assassination.
The image of Musharraf being treated as a criminal suspect shocked Pakistan, where military generals long have been considered above the law. Pakistan allowed him to leave the country on bail to Dubai in 2016 for medical treatment and he remained there after facing a later-overturned death sentence.
But it suggested Pakistan may be ready to turn a corner in its history of military 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, at 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 writer Rebecca Santana contributed to this report. Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
China may respond to the U.S. shooting down its suspected spy balloon after warning of 'serious repercussions,' but analysts say any move will likely be finely calibrated to keep from worsening ties that both sides have been seeking to repair.
Canadian researchers are drawing attention to the increasing prevalence of 'a pathological pursuit of muscularity' among Canadian boys and young men, with a new study that found one in four were at risk of developing what's known as muscle dysmorphia.
A former Israeli prime minister who served briefly as a mediator at the start of Russia's war with Ukraine says he drew a promise from the Russian president not to kill his Ukrainian counterpart.
Canada has sent one of its military planes to Haiti to help the country cope with escalating violence.
The U.S. military on Saturday shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America. China insisted the flyover was an accident involving a civilian aircraft and threatened repercussions.
Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti says he is open to amending bail laws, which have come under increased scrutiny following the shooting death of an Ontario Provincial Police officer.
An early study has shown keeping your gums and teeth healthy may have added benefits for your brain health.
The federal defence Minister says Canada 'unequivocally supports' the United States government's decision to shoot down a high-altitude surveillance balloon that was suspected of spying for China, noting the balloon violated Canadian airspace.
Ukraine's defence minister expressed confidence Sunday that Western allies would agree to the country's latest weapons request -- warplanes to fight off Russian forces that invaded nearly a year ago.
Credit: ctvnews.ca. You can read the original article here.
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Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup and later led a reluctant Pakistan into aiding the U.S. war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, has died, officials said Sunday. He was 79.
Musharraf, a former special forces commando, became president through the last of a string of military coups that roiled Pakistan since its founding amid the bloody 1947 partition of India. He ruled the nuclear-armed state after his 1999 coup through tensions with India, an atomic proliferation scandal and an Islamic extremist insurgency. He stepped down in 2008 while facing possible impeachment.
Later in life, Musharraf lived in self-imposed exile in Dubai to avoid criminal charges, despite attempting a political comeback in 2012. But it wasn’t to be as his poor health plagued his last years. He maintained a soldier’s fatalism after avoiding a violent death that always seemed to be stalking him as Islamic militants twice targeted 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 once wrote. “I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat.”
Musharraf’s family announced in June 2022 that he had been hospitalized for weeks in Dubai while suffering from amyloidosis, an incurable condition that sees proteins build up in the body’s organs.
“Going through a difficult stage where recovery is not possible and organs are malfunctioning,” the family said. They later said he also needed access to the drug daratumumab, which is used to treat multiple myeloma. That bone marrow cancer can cause amyloidosis.
Shazia Siraj, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai, confirmed his death and said diplomats were providing support to his family. The Pakistani military also offered its condolences.
“May Allah bless the departed soul and give strength to bereaved family,” a military statement said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif similarly offered his condolences in a short statement.
“May God give his family the courage to bear this loss,” Sharif said.
Pakistan, a nation nearly twice the size of California along the Arabian Sea, is now home to 220 million people. But it would be its border with Afghanistan that would soon draw the U.S.?s attention and dominate Musharraf’s life a little under two years after he seized power.
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden launched the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks from Afghanistan, sheltered by the country’s Taliban rulers. Musharraf knew what would come next.
“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 told Musharraf that Pakistan would either be “with us or against us.” Musharraf said another American official threatened to bomb Pakistan ”back into the Stone Age” if it chose the latter.
Musharraf chose the former. A month later, he stood by then-President George W. Bush at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to declare Pakistan’s unwavering support to fight with the United States against “terrorism in all its forms wherever it exists.”
Pakistan became a crucial transit point for NATO supplies headed to landlocked Afghanistan. That was the case even though Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency had backed the Taliban after it swept into power in Afghanistan in 1994. Prior to that, the CIA and others funneled money and arms through the ISI to Islamic fighters battling the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan saw Taliban fighters flee over the border back into Pakistan, including bin Laden, whom the U.S. would kill in 2011 at a compound in Abbottabad. They regrouped and the offshoot Pakistani Taliban emerged, beginning a yearslong insurgency in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The CIA began flying armed Predator drones from Pakistan with Musharraf’s blessing, using an airstrip built by the founding president of the United Arab Emirates for falconing in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The program helped beat back the militants but saw over 400 strikes in Pakistan alone kill at least 2,366 people– including 245 civilians, according to the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank.
Though Pakistan under Musharraf launched these operations, the militants still thrived as billions of American dollars flowed into the nation. That led to suspicion that still 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 published by WikiLeaks said, describing what had become the diplomatic equivalent 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 would be Musharraf’s life on the line. Militants tried to assassinate him twice in 2003 by targeting his convoy, first with a bomb planted on a bridge and then with car bombs. That second attack saw Musharraf’s vehicle lifted into the air by the blast before touching the ground again. It raced to safety on just its rims, Musharraf pulling a Glock pistol in case he needed to fight his way out.
It wasn’t until his wife, Sehba, saw the car covered in gore that the scale of the attack 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 middle son of a diplomat. His family joined millions of other Muslims in fleeing westward when predominantly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan split during independence from Britain in 1947. The partition saw hundreds of thousands of people killed in riots and fighting.
Musharraf entered the Pakistani army at age 18 and made his career there as Islamabad fought three wars against India. He’d launch his own attempt at seizing territory in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir in 1999 just before seizing power from Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Sharif had ordered Musharraf’s dismissal as the army chief flew home from a visit to Sri Lanka and denied his plane landing rights in Pakistan, even as it ran low on fuel. On the ground, the army seized control and after he landed Musharraf took charge.
Yet as ruler, Musharraf nearly reached a deal with India on Kashmir, according to U.S. diplomats at the time. He also worked toward a rapprochement with Pakistan’s longtime rival.
Another major scandal emerged under his rule when the world discovered that famed Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, long associated with the country’s atomic bomb, had been selling centrifuge designs and other secrets to countries including Iran, Libya and North Korea, making tens of millions of dollars. Those designs helped Pyongyang to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, while centrifuges from Khan’s designs still spin in Iran amid the collapse of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
Musharraf said he suspected Khan but it wasn’t until 2003 when then-CIA director George Tenet showed him detailed plans for a Pakistani centrifuge that the scientist had been selling that he realized the severity of what happened.
Khan would confess on state television in 2004 and Musharraf would pardon him, though he’d be confined to house 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 domestic support eventually eroded. He held flawed elections in late 2002 _ only after changing the constitution to give himself sweeping powers to sack the prime minister and parliament. He then reneged on a promise to stand down as army chief by the end of 2004.
Militant anger toward Musharraf increased in 2007 when he ordered a raid against the Red Mosque in downtown Islamabad. It had become a sanctuary for militants opposed to Pakistan’s support of the Afghan war. The weeklong operation killed over 100 people.
The incident severely damaged Musharraf’s reputation among everyday citizens and earned him the undying hatred of militants who launched a series of punishing attacks 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 pressure at home and abroad to restore civilian rule, Musharraf stepped down as army chief. Though he won another five-year presidential term, Musharraf faced a major crisis following former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007 at a campaign rally as she sought to become prime minister for the third time.
The public suspected Musharraf’s hand in the killing, which he denied. A later United Nations report acknowledged the Pakistani Taliban was a main suspect in her slaying but warned that elements of Pakistan’s intelligence services may have been involved.
Musharraf resigned as president in August 2008 after ruling coalition officials 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 with his emotions, said in an hourlong televised address.
Afterward, he lived abroad in Dubai and London, attempting a political comeback in 2012. But Pakistan instead arrested the former general and put him under house arrest. He faced treason allegations over the Supreme Court debacle and other charges stemming from the Red Mosque raid and Bhutto’s assassination.
The image of Musharraf being treated as a criminal suspect shocked Pakistan, where military generals long have been considered above the law. Pakistan allowed him to leave the country on bail to Dubai in 2016 for medical treatment and he remained there after facing a later-overturned death sentence.
But it suggested Pakistan may be ready to turn a corner in its history of military 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, at 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.”
Credit: globalnews.ca. You can read the original article here.
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(Bloomberg) -- Pervez Musharraf, the former four-star Pakistani army general who governed the South Asian nation for nearly a decade after coming to power in a 1999 bloodless coup, has died. He was 79.
He died after a long ailment, Geo News said Sunday, citing diplomatic sources it didn’t identify. His death was confirmed by the Pakistan army in a statement expressing condolences.
Musharraf, who was Pakistan’s fourth military leader, was a polarizing and divisive figure. He ruled through the turbulent period after Sept. 11, 2001 and attempted to appease American demands during the war on terrorism. Yet in interviews after stepping down, he confirmed that Pakistan supported proxy forces, including the Taliban in Afghanistan, to counter fears of being circumscribed by a hostile India.
“India has a strategy of strangulating Pakistan economically, isolating it internationally and weakening its army — we have to counter that,” he said in a 2018 interview in his penthouse apartment in Dubai, where he lived in self-exile for most of his life after being forced to resign the presidency in 2008.
Some in Pakistan praised the former army chief and president for ushering in a level of economic stability, helped by American debt waivers and aid in return for military support. Many, however, saw him as a puppet of the US. Musharraf also drew criticism for constitutional and human rights violations and was blamed for failing to tackle widespread violence in the later years of his rule.
After joining Pakistan’s army at age 18, he was commissioned in the artillery regiment in 1964 and later became a commando. Decorated for actions during two wars with India, and despite his rambunctious and hot-headed style — which led to multiple disciplinary actions — he became a general in 1991.
In 1998, then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif surprised the top brass by elevating Musharraf to chief of army staff after forcing General Jehangir Karamat to step down over a disagreement about security policy. Sharif believed Musharraf — who wasn’t from Punjab province, the traditional recruiting ground for officers — would be a pliant army chief.
It was not to be. In 1999, Pakistani troops infiltrated Kargil, an Indian-controlled district in the disputed region of Kashmir — provoking fighting and nearly a full-scale war before Sharif ordered a climbdown in the face of US pressure. Sharif maintained that the operation was ordered without his knowledge. Musharraf disputed that, and the conflict led to an irreparable strain between the pair.
In October that same year, Sharif sacked Musharraf as he was returning from a visit to Sri Lanka. The military leadership defied Sharif’s orders and led a coup that toppled his government.
Musharraf claimed Sharif didn’t allow his plane to land in Pakistan. The general refused to let the pilot fly to nearby India, and the aircraft touched down in Karachi with barely seven minutes of fuel left. Musharraf declared himself the country’s leader, and Sharif was later sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, which was commuted when he was exiled to Saudi Arabia.
In contrast to Pakistan’s previous military dictator, General Zia ul-Haq — who elevated strict conservative Islamic laws in the country — Musharraf was a relatively secular figure, fond of whiskey and cigars in a nation where alcohol is banned for the country’s Muslim majority.
Economically, the military-led government sought to reduce overseas debt. In the last Asian default before Sri Lanka’s delinquency in 2022, it froze repayments, forcing a downgrade of Pakistan’s credit rating to D. Musharraf also used his newfound US support to get loans and grants from Western countries and international lenders.
Under intense pressure from Washington, Musharraf’s regime arrested and killed numerous al-Qaeda operatives following the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, and it cracked down on some other militant groups that operated on Pakistani soil. That made Musharraf a target of extremists, and he survived multiple assassination attempts. At the same time, during his tenure the US accused Pakistan’s military of harboring and supporting insurgents that launched cross-border attacks in Afghanistan and India — complaints that continued after Musharraf left office.
He repeatedly reneged on his pledges to restore legitimate democracy. Musharraf was sworn in as the 11th president of Pakistan in November 2002, following a controversial referendum in April that year in which he got 98% of the vote. Sharif and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples Party were barred from contesting the poll.
As head of the military, Musharraf arguably was the Pakistani leader who got closest to settling the country’s long-running disputes with India. He traveled there for a series of talks with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in a bid to reach a reconciliation between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
According to Musharraf, Vajpayee had in principle agreed to a four-point solution to settle claims to the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, which was split during partition. Musharraf later blamed the Indian cabinet for failing to ratify it after the agreement broke down hours before a planned signing ceremony.
In the later years of his rule, Pakistan’s economy and security deteriorated and Musharraf faced increasing calls to step down and allow democratic elections to take place. He succumbed to Western pressure to allow Bhutto and Sharif to return to Pakistan in 2007 and contest the upcoming ballot.
The campaign was marred by widespread violence, including Bhutto’s murky assassination in December that year in the military garrison city of Rawalpindi, where her father, former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed in 1979 after being overthrown by General Zia.
Facing impeachment, Musharraf finally stepped down in August 2008 after Bhutto’s party came to power. He made a one-hour televised speech defending his nine-year rule and then left Pakistan that November.
The former general tried multiple times to re-enter politics. When he last returned to Pakistan in 2013 he was eventually placed under house arrest. The government allowed him to leave in 2016 to seek medical treatment abroad. Facing numerous legal issues, Musharraf was barred from contesting Pakistan’s elections in July 2018.
Frail and recovering from an unspecified illness, Musharraf said in the October 2018 interview in Dubai that it was unlikely he’d return to Pakistan any time soon to face what he called “politically motivated” criminal charges.
In December 2019 the former army chief was sentenced to death in absentia by a special court in Pakistan over the constitutional charges. The ruling was challenged by the military, which it said had caused “pain and anguish” among the rank and file. Musharraf appealed the verdict and it was annulled by the Lahore High Court the following month for being unconstitutional and politically motivated.
Musharraf married his wife Sehba in 1968. They had a daughter, Ayla, and a son, Bilal.
Credit: bloomberg.com. You can read the original article here.
Captain Jos Buttler and Dawid Malan made centuries and dragged England back from 14-3 to post a big total and win the third one-day international against South Africa for a consolation victory.
Fast bowler Jofra Archer, playing in his first international series for two years, took 6-40 and blew through South Africa's top and middle order to carry England to its 59-run win in Kimberley. Archer fittingly finished it off by bowling Tabraiz Shamsi.
South Africa was all out for 287 chasing England's 346-7.
South Africa had already won the series after taking a 2-0 lead and while the victory in the final game of the series was a consolation for England, it had repercussions for South Africa.
South Africa is still outside of the automatic qualifying places for the 50-over World Cup in India this year and needs every win it can get. The Proteas have two ODIs left against the Netherlands to clinch automatic qualification. England is already assured of a place at the World Cup.
England built its daunting total in Kimberley through a magnificent partnership of 232 for the fourth wicket between Buttler and Malan.
Opener Malan made 118 off 114 balls and Buttler hit 131 off 127 to turn England's innings around after Jason Roy (1), Ben Duckett (0) and Harry Brook (6) all went cheaply.
From 14-3, England had surged to 246-4 by the time the partnership was broken when Malan miscued a slog high in the air and was caught by wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen.
Moeen Ali cracked 41 from 28 at the end to help England to the highest ODI total at Kimberley by some way, surpassing the 304-5 Sri Lanka got in 2012.
With South Africa resting top fast bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi put in the best performance with the ball for the Proteas with 4-62.
South Africa wasn't able to maintain the rate needed to win and Archer, who returned for England in the first game of the series after a long absence with elbow and back injuries, made all the meaningful breakthroughs.
He removed Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, dangerman David Miller and top-scorer Heinrich Klaasen (80) in his six wickets as England won comfortably this time after letting dominant positions slip in the first two games of the series.
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Credit: https://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/sa-vs-eng-3rd-odi-buttler-malan-get-100s-archer-takes-6-in-england-win/article66462138.ece
Super Giants need 71 runs in 54 balls.
Day 3 - Jharkhand lead by 7 runs.
Day 3 - Uttarakhand trail by 384 runs.
Day 3 - Saurashtra lead by 10 runs.
Day 3 - Sri Lanka A lead by 249 runs.
Day 3 - M. Pradesh need 187 runs.
Day 2 - Windward Is trail by 10 runs.
Day 1 - Barbados chose to field.
Day 1 - Leeward Is chose to bat.
Credit: https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/shubman-gill-showcases-his-all-format-expertise-with-century-vs-nz-1356978
Opener Shubman Gill on Wednesday announced himself as an all-format player with his maiden Twenty20 international century to help India crush New Zealand by 168 runs in a series-clinching victory.
Gill smashed an unbeaten 126 off 63 balls to steer the team to 4-234 after they elected to bat first in the decider at the world’s biggest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad.
Indian bowlers skittled out the Kiwis for a paltry 66 in 12.1 overs for a 2-1 series win.
The hosts had whitewashed the Kiwis in three one-day matches.
The huge victory was India’s biggest ever in T20 internationals and the biggest margin by runs in a match played between two Test-playing nations.
Gill, who hit a matchwinning Test ton in Bangladesh in December and then his maiden ODI double hundred in January, had scored just 76 runs in his previous five T20s since making his debut last month against Sri Lanka.
“I was backing myself to get the big ones even in one-days and T20s, unfortunately it don’t happen for me in the Sri Lanka series,” said the 23-year-old Gill.
Asked about the demands of playing all three formats, Gill said: “When you are representing your country, I don’t think there is any kind of fatigue. I always wanted to play for India and being fortunate enough to play all the three formats, it is a blessing.”
India elected to bat first on a batting-friendly pitch and Gill continued his magnificent run of form -- hitting 12 fours and seven sixes.
He had also put the New Zealand bowling to the sword by scoring 360 runs in the preceding ODIs -- the joint-most in a bilateral three-match series.
Gill put on 103 runs for the fourth wicket with skipper Hardik Pandya, who made 30 and then took four wickets with his pace bowling, at the 132,000-seater Narendra Modi Stadium.
“We want to normalise these pressure games, and hopefully we can do better at bigger stages,” said Pandya, who was named man of the series.
Off-spinner Michael Bracewell struck early as he trapped Ishan Kishan lbw for one in the second over of the innings.
Gill hit back with a flurry of boundaries including three in one over off Blair Tickner. Rahul Tripathi, who made 44, joined the charge as the two put on 80 runs.
Tripathi smashed three sixes including one off leg-spinner Ish Sodhi only to hole out next ball in another attempt to clear the ropes.
Gill, who became only the fifth Indian batsman to record centuries across all three formats, found another attacking partner in Suryakumar Yadav who smashed 24 off 13 balls as the two kept up the onslaught.
Tickner cut short Suryakumar’s stay with Bracewell taking a sharp catch at mid-on.
But the unstoppable Gill changed gears and raised his ton off 54 balls with a boundary as he took off his helmet and let off a roar.
New Zealand made a horrendous start to their mammoth chase as they lost their top four for just seven runs inside three overs as Arshdeep Singh struck twice in the second over of the innings.
Suryakumar took two spectacular catches at first slip off Pandya’s pace bowling to send back Finn Allen, for three, and Glenn Phillips, for two.
Tearaway quick Umran Malik bowled Bracewell before Daryl Mitchell, who made 35, and skipper Mitchell Santner attempted to resist.
“It’s tough to win if you lose five (wickets) in the powerplay,” said Santner. Arshdeep, Umran and Shivam Mavi took two wickets each.
India will now head into the hotly-anticipated four-Test series against Australia starting February 9 in Nagpur.
Credit: https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/cricket-scores-2023-india-vs-new-zealand-third-t20-shubman-gill-century-in-ahmedabad-makes-history-video-highlights/news-story/61361a9574c1f7e8a0b31c31fa6dbe8d
Dawid Malan and captain Jos Buttler hit centuries to set up a 59-run win for England in the third and final one-day international against South Africa at the Diamond Oval in Kimberley on Wednesday.
Malan made 118 and Buttler scored 131 in an England total of 346 for seven.
South Africa were bowled out for 287 with fast bowler Jofra Archer taking a career-best 6-40.
Archer, in the second match of an international comeback after a long injury-enforced lay-off, bowled consistently at speeds of more than 145km/h.
“Being back after however long, it’s kind of surreal,” Archer said. “You only get that feeling after you start playing. It’s definitely gone up a few notches.
“I had the best time off. I had enough of it to know I don’t miss home like I used to. I’ve done everything I needed to do in the last 18 months and I’m just ready to play cricket.
“It’s just a long road, this is a small tick but I want to see how I am in April, June, July and September. This is just the start of the road.”
Archer only took 1-81 in the first match of his comeback but looked back to his full powers in the final match.
Speaking on Sky Sports after the match, former England captain Nasser Hussain said of Archer: “Bowling fast is not easy and he has got that Michael Holding effortless grace.
“Everything is in straight lines, his seam is position (is fantastic). It is just perfection. Not a lot can go wrong, apart from his body.
“He is a graceful fast bowler and it is so good to have him back in international cricket. He is like gold dust and needs looking after. He is so valuable for English cricket and world cricket. He is so box office.”
South Africa had already clinched the series by winning the first two matches but England captain Buttler said Wednesday’s win was a reward for the hard work his players had put in during the short series.
“There’s been some really good stuff. Guys getting hundreds and Jofra Archer was brilliant. We’ve got a good thing going. We’re building nicely,” said Buttler, who was named player of the match and player of the series.
South African captain Temba Bavuma said the series win was important.
“We came in under a lot of pressure. We’ve done ourselves justice and come closer to automatic qualification for the World Cup.”
South Africa need one win in their remaining two matches against the Netherlands to move ahead of West Indies into one of the eight qualifying places in the World Cup Super League, although Sri Lanka could still move ahead of them in a forthcoming series against New Zealand.
The left-handed Malan and his right-handed captain shared a fourth wicket partnership of 232 off 211 balls after coming together with their team in trouble at 14 for three in the sixth over.
A slow start to the partnership became a torrent of runs as they took command on a slow pitch.
England scored 217 runs in the last 20 overs of their innings, scoring rapidly even after the two centurions were dismissed.
South Africa opted to go into the match without their two fastest bowlers, Anrich Nortje and Kagiso Rabada, and appeared powerless to keep the scoring in check.
When South Africa batted they were 59 runs ahead on comparative scores after 30 overs. The difference was that England had more strike power in the middle overs, with Archer and leg-spinner Adil Rashid (three for 68) taking crucial wickets.
Credit: https://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket/cricket-scores-2023-england-vs-south-africa-third-odi-jofra-archer-takes-six-wickets-highlights-video-ashes/news-story/ee347c350c7c77c8407663496a580f3b
UPDATE: Usman Khawaja, Australia’s most prolific batter over the past 12 months, has had his visa for arrival into India approved and will fly out of Australia on Thursday morning to link up with the Test squad.
The opening batter, who was this week crowned Australia's men’s Test player for the past year, was unable to board a flight bound for Bengaluru on Wednesday having not yet been approved for a visa.
That paperwork came through overnight on Wednesday and the 36-year-old was confirmed to fly out Thursday.
He will link up with the rest of the Aussie squad in Bengaluru where they are training at facilities in Alur, about an hour out of the city, until Monday before moving to Nagpur for next week’s series opener.
Those are conditions Khawaja was once considered susceptible in but the left-hander looked to have put that behind him after performing well on Australia’s Test tours of Pakistan and Sri Lanka last year.
A strong partnership with David Warner at the top of the order could go a long way to helping an Australian Test side overcome India on their home turf for the first time since 2004.
None of the other members of the 18-player squad had issues gaining entry to India, with all of them bar Khawaja and Mitchell Starc (whose broken finger will sideline until later in the series) flying out on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Pakistan-born opener has previously made many previous trips to India including both the 2013 and 2017 Test tours, though he did not play during either. Khawaja also faced visa challenges when he tried to enter the country in 2011 for the T20 Champion’s League due to, what he described at the time, as an ‘admin quirk’.
Credit: https://www.cricket.com.au/news/usman-khawaja-visa-india-delayed-entry-australia-tests-nagpur/2023-02-01
India registered their biggest-ever victory in T20Is, with a 168-run win over New Zealand in the third match on Wednesday. Here are other interesting stats from the match.
India sealed yet another series this year, beating New Zealand in the third and final T20I in Ahmedabad on Wednesday, to take it 2-1.
After losing the first T20I by 21 runs last week, the Men in Blue, under the captaincy of Hardik Pandya, bounced back with a nervy win in the second T20I, and Wednesday’s match was a winner-takes-all contest.
India opted to bat after winning the toss, and that decision did wonders for Shubman Gill, who scored his first T20I century, having just made his debut in the format in early January. His knock took the hosts to a mammoth total of 234/4, and New Zealand could not even manage half of that, being bundled out for just 66 in 12.1 overs.
That’s another series in the bag for India in 2023, having won both the ODI and T20I series against Sri Lanka, as well as the ODI series against the Black Caps.
—Their 168-run win over the Kiwis on Wednesday was India’s biggest margin of victory in T20Is. India’s previous biggest T20I win was against Ireland in Dublin, back in 2018.
—This victory margin was also the biggest margin of win in a T20I between two Full Member nations.
—Their total of 66 was New Zealand’s second lowest in T20Is. The Kiwis had been previously bundled out for 60 on two separate occasions, one against Sri Lanka in 2014, and then against Bangladesh in 2021.
—New Zealand’s 60 against India on Wednesday was also the lowest T20I total by any team against India. Ireland had made just 70 in 2018, while England were bundled out for 80 by India in a T20 World Cup game in 2012.
—Wednesday was just the second occasion when an Indian batter’s score outscored a team’s total in a T20I. Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 122 had overtaken Afghanistan’s 111/8 in Dubai last year. On Wednesday, Shubman Gill scored an unbeaten 126 which was way more than the Kiwis total of 66.
—Hardik Pandya became the first Indian captain to take a four-wicket in haul in T20Is. He also became the first Indian captain since Anil Kumble in 2008 in any format to do so. Kumble had taken four wickets in both innings of the Sydney Test against Australia in 2008.
—It was just the second time when Indian pacers took all 10 wickets in a T20I innings. The only other occasion was against Pakistan in Dubai in 2022.
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Three centuries, including a highest score of 208 against New Zealand show how Shubman Gill is making the most of his opportunities.
With India having clinched the ODI series against New Zealand with a game to spare, let's now take a look at some takeaways from the contest.
Shubman Gill was at his ominous best and picked up boundaries at will throughout his innings before pacers ran through the New Zealand batters in the second innings.
Credit: https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/sports-news/india-vs-new-zealand-men-in-blues-biggest-ever-win-shubman-gill-outscores-kiwis-and-more-stats-from-3rd-t20i-12087462.html
