In The Line Of Fire-By Musharraf

[Dark Saint Alaick]

In The Line Of Fire

A Memoir

Pervez Musharraf

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[Dark Saint Alaick]

According to Time magazine, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf holds 'the world's most dangerous job'. He has twice come within inches of assassination. His forces have caught over 670 members of Al Qaeda, yet many others remain at large and active, including Osama bin Laden
and Ayman Al Zawahiri. Long locked in a deadly embrace with its nuclear neighbour India, Pakistan has twice come close to full-scale war since it first exploded a nuclear bomb in 1998. As President Musharraf struggles for the security and political future of his nation, the stakes could not be higher for the world at large.

It is unprecedented for a sitting head of state to write a memoir as revelatory, detailed and gripping as In the Line of Fire. Here, for the first time, readers can get a first• hand view of the war on terror in its central theatre. President Musharraf details the manhunts for Bin Laden and Zawahiri, and their top lieutenants, complete
with harrowing cat-and-mouse games, informants, interceptions, and bloody firefights. He tells the stories of the near-miss assassination attempts not only against himself, but against Shaukut Aziz (later elected Prime Minister) and one of his top army officers, and the fatal abduction and beheading of the US journalist Daniel Pearl - as well as the investigations that uncovered the perpetrators. He details the army's mountain operations that have swept several valleys clean, and he talks about the areas of North Waziristan where Al Qaeda is still operating.

Yet the war on terror is just one of the many headline- making subjects in In the Line of Fire. The full story of the events that brought Musharraf to power in 1999; new details of the confrontation with India in Kashmir, and
a proposal for resolving that dispute; telling portraits of Mullah Omar and A. Q. Khan, among many other key figures; and fascinating insights into the Muslim world in the twenty-first century, including Musharraf's views on Israel and the emancipation of women.

Pervez Musharraf's life has mirrored that of his country, ever since Pakistan's creation, when he was a four-year-old boy. His and Pakistan's stories are dramatic, fateful, and crucial to the entire world.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

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I dedicate this book to the people of Pakistan— those who toil, sacrifice, and pray for their country and who wait patiently for a better future.
They deserve a committed, selfless leadership, which can help them realize their boundless potential.


AN D


To my mother,
whose unwavering faith in me
has been the driving force in my life— her unconditional love and prayers remain my unremitting source
of strength.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

PREFACE


This book is a window into contemporary Pakistan and my role in shaping it. I have lived a passionate life, perhaps an impetuous one
in my early years, but always I have focused on self-improvement and the betterment of my country. Often I have been chastised for being too forthright and candid, and I trust you will find these qualities reflected here. I do not shy away from sensitive issues, circumscribed only by certain dictates of national security.
I decided to write my autobiography after Pakistan took center stage in the world's conflicts, including the war on terror. There has been intense curiosity about me and the country I lead. I want the world to learn the truth.
Pakistan is a nation of many parts, rural and urban, rich and poor, highly educated and illiterate. Our 160 million people speak several different languages. Moderation collides with fanatical extremism, and westernization squares off against a conservative traditional culture. Governing Pakistan has been labeled by some as one of the most difficult jobs in the world. September 11, 2001, multiplied Pakistan's challenges many times over, amplifying domestic issues, and reshaping our international relations.
Our nation plays a key role in the developing story of the twenty-first century. What happens in Pakistan—socially, politically, and economically—in the coming years not only will help decide the outcome of the global war on terror, it will also shape what the future will look like for both Islam and the West. I am determined that that future be peaceful and prosperous—not just for Pakistan but for the entire international community. That vision is possible only if the Muslim world and the West, led by the United States, strive together toward resolving the issues before us.
My wife Sehba and other close family members, Hidayat Khaishgi, Huma , Aftab, and Shabnam have encouraged me throughout the process of writing this book. They gave me the confidence to persevere in spite of my otherwise busy schedule. My personal thanks are also due to Humayun Gauhar and Bruce Nichols for their editing contributions. Humayun has burned much midnight oil to help with the checking of my scripts. Most of all I would be remiss if I did not express special gratitude to my staff officer, Brigadier Asim Bajwa, for his painstaking and laborious efforts of both recording my thoughts and then tran scribing them. Without his efficiency and devotion to me, the arduous task of completing the book would have been difficult to achieve.
My autobiography is my contribution to the history of our era. It is also of course my own story, expressed in my own way, about an eventful, turbulent life in which both luck and destiny played leading roles.

Pervez Musharraf
August 1,2006
Islambad, Pakistan

[Dark Saint Alaick]

PROLOGUE

FACE-TO-FACE WITH TERROR


face-to-face with terror. It was December 14, 2003, and I was on my way home to Army House after having landed in Islamabad a few minutes earlier. Religious extremists had struck right in my midst, and it was only by the grace of God that I was saved and no precious lives were lost.
I have confronted death and defied it several times in the past because destiny and fate have always smiled on me. I only pray that I have more than the proverbial nine lives of a cat.
I first avoided death as a teenager in 1961, when I was hanging upside down from the branch of a mango tree and it broke. When I hit the ground, my friends thought I was dead.
In 1972, when I was leading a company of commandos as a major in the mountainous Northern Areas, I should have been on a plane of Pakistan International Airlines that crashed into a glacier up in the Himalayas on a flight from Gilgit to Islamabad. At the last minute, I hadn't boarded it, because the bodies of two of my men who had been killed by an avalanche had been found, and my commanding officer and I opted to give up our seats to make the weight available for the conveyance of the bodies. The plane has still not been found.
I should have been on President Zia ul-Haq's C-130 airplane that crashed on August 17,1988. I had been selected to become military secretary to the president, but as luck would have it, another brigadier was appointed to the post at the last minute. That poor man went to a fiery death instead of me. The United States ambassador, Arnold Lewis Raphael, was also among the unfortunate passengers. The crash was never fully explained and remains a mystery in the modern history of Pakistan.

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My closest call was in 1998, when, as a lieutenant general commanding the Mangla Corps, I was called to army headquarters in Rawalpindi for a conference. After finishing my official commitments, I went off with a friend, Lieutenant Colonel Aslam Cheema, to play bridge in his office, which was at a remote location. My commander of aviation, who was flying a helicopter back to Mangla started looking for me. He wanted to take me back to Mangla by the chopper to avoid the two-hour road journey. I would have readily flown with him. But he didn't know where I was, gave up looking, and left. The helicopter crashed and he died. A simple game of bridge with a friend saved me.
On October 12, 1999, I was chief of the army staff, the highest military position in Pakistan. My plane was about to land at Karachi from Colombo, when the prime minister effectively hijacked it from the ground, blocking the runway and closing all airports in Pakistan. He ordered my plane to leave Pakistan air space. Ou r fuel was so low that we would have crashed had the army not taken control of Karachi Airport before it was too late. We landed with only seven minutes of fuel to spare. Th e nearly fatal confrontation with the prime minister brought me to power—a story that I will relate fully in this book.
I also had two brushes with death in the India-Pakistan war of 1965. As if these real risks were not enough, in 2001, when I took off from Ne w York to Pakistan after the United Nations Summit, the pilot alarmed me by relaying a message that air traffic control claimed there might be a bomb on the plane. We returned to Ne w York to find, after hours of search, that the warning was a hoax.

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But the events of December 2003 put me in the front line of the war on terror and are part of my reason for writing this book now, while I am still fighting. On December 14, 2003, I landed from Karachi at Chaklala Air Force Base, about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) from Army House in Rawalpindi, and six miles (ten kilometers) from Islamabad. My aide-de-camp met me with two pieces of news: Pakistan had beaten India in a polo match, and Saddam Hussein had been caught. I made my way home to Army House. I was talking to my military secretary, Major General Nadeem Taj, seated to my right, when I heard a loud, though muffled, thud behind us. As my car became airborne I immediately realized what was happening—I was staring terrorism in the face. I thought ruefully that while leaders of other countries only visit scenes of carnage later or see it on a television screen, I was personally in the midst of it. Not only that—I was the target. But unlike most leaders, I am also a soldier, chief of the army staff, and supreme commander of my country's armed forces. I am cut out to be in the midst of battle—trained, prepared, and equipped. Fate and the confluence of events have seen to it that Pakistan and I are in the thick of the fight against terrorism. My training has made me constantly ready for the assignment.
I had just crossed a bridge very near Army House when it happened. All four wheels of my car left the road and we shot quite some distance up in the air. Though the sound of the explosion was muffled by the armor plating of the car, I knew instinctively that it was a bomb. So did my military secretary. I knew too that it was a huge bomb, because it had lifted the three-ton Mercedes clean off the road. I looked back and saw a pall of smoke, dust, and debris on the bridge that we had just sped over. When we reached Army House, about 500 yards (400 meters) away, my deputy military secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Asim Bajwa, who had been traveling in another vehicle in my motorcade, confirmed that the explosion was an assassination attempt.

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I entered the house to find my wife, Sehba, and my mother sitting in the family lounge. Sehba has been with me through thick and thin— avalanches, hijacked flights, risky road journeys. She had heard the explosion because Army House is so close to the bridge. She saw me enter and started to ask what the explosion had been about. My mother's back was to the door, and she didn't realize that I had arrived. I put my finger to my lips and motioned to Sehba to come out of the room, lest my mother hear and become terribly upset, as any mother would. In the corridor, I told Sehba that it had been a bomb meant to kill me, but that everything was all right now. After comforting her I drove back to the bridge to get a firsthand look at the situation. The bridge had literally been ripped apart—so if the explosion had occurred a second before my car reached the spot, we would have crashed twenty-five feet (7.5 meters) to the ground through the gap. There was still chaos at the bridge, and the people there were utterly surprised to see me.
Keeping the news from my mother was impossible, of course. She soon discovered what had happened as concerned colleagues, relatives, and friends started calling or dropping in. The story was all over television and on the front pages of newspapers the next day. I had overshadowed both Saddam and polo, at least in Pakistan.
That evening Sehba and I were to attend a wedding at the Serena Hotel in Islamabad. We did not hesitate. Both of us went. Our decision caused no little consternation among the guests, as they thought that I had good reason to remain in the safety of my house only a few hours after terrorists had tried to assassinate me. I am sure that my escape, and my not breaking my schedule, must have caused disappointment and dismay among the terrorists. Sticking to the schedule may have caused some concern among my security personnel, but they are trained to take such things in stride. It certainly did cause some inconvenience to motorists, as the traffic along the route was blocked.

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Before the assassination attempt, I would flow with the normal traffic, stopping at every red light. No w things started changing. The police started blocking all traffic in either direction along the route that I was to take. There were new escort vehicles on either side of my car. And, of course, my exact schedule would not be known to anyone except those closest to me.
People had barely stopped chattering about this assassination attempt when—on December 25, 2003, a holiday—there was yet another one. After addressing a conference at Islamabad's Convention Center, I left for Army House at about one fifteen PM. My chief security officer, Colonel Uyas, and my aide-de-camp, Major Tanveer, were in the lead car of my newly expanded motorcade. Next came the escort car. I was in the third car with my military secretary.
We crossed the fateful bridge, which was still under repair after the bomb blast, and reached a gasoline pump on the right. In front of the pump there was an opening in the median of the two-way road for U-turns. The oncoming traffic had been blocked. There was a policeman standing at the opening. I noticed that though all the oncoming traffic was facing straight toward us, a Suzuki van was standing obliquely, as if to drive into the opening to get to my side of the road. Reflexively, I turned and looked over my right shoulder at the van, as one does when one sees something odd. Then I looked straight ahead. It all took a split second. Hardly had I turned my head back when there was a deafening bang and my car was up in the air again.
All hell broke loose. There was smoke; there was debris; there were body parts and pieces of cars. Vehicles had been blown to smithereens, human beings ripped to pieces. It turned dark, and we couldn't see anything. It was the middle of the afternoon, but it seemed like dusk.

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Jan Mohammad, my admirable driver, reflexively put his foot on the brake. I took out my Glock pistol, which is always with me, and shouted to Jan Mohammad in Urdu, "Dabaa, dabaa"—"drive, drive." He floored the accelerator but had gone only about 100 yards (90 meters) when we came to another gasoline pump. Again there was a horrendous bang. Again all hell broke loose. Th e first explosion had come from our right rear; this one came straight on from the immediate right front. Something big and very heavy hit the windshield. I don't know what it was, but it made a big dent in the bulletproof glass— which, however, did not break. It came from such an angle that any broken glass would have gotten either my driver or me.
Once again my car took off. Again there were human parts, car parts, debris, smoke, and dust—and a lot of noise. Again it went dark— very dark. It seemed as if midnight had come at noon.
My car's tires had blown. We were on the rims now, but such cars are designed to go on their rims for thirty-five miles or so (fifty or sixty kilometers). Again Jan Mohammad hit the brakes, and again I shouted, "Dabaa, dabaa. Hit the accelerator. Let's get out of here." Th e car lurched forward on its rims, making a lot of noise, like a rattletrap, and got us to Army House.
Sehba, of course, had heard the horrific explosions and had run out to the porch. When she saw the first car roll in on its rims—spewing smoke, filled with holes, and plastered with human flesh—she started screaming. She screamed and screamed. I had never seen her do that before. She is always calm in the face of danger and during horrific events, then she has a delayed reaction the next day, when tears come. But now she was screaming uncontrollably, hysterically. She wouldn't look at me. She started running toward the gate. I asked her, "What are you doing? Where are you going?" But she just went on screaming. I couldn't understand what she was saying, except, "What is going on? What is happening?" It was understandable hysteria, and it helped her to get the shock out of her system. It also diverted my mind and the minds of others with me from our own shock. I got hold of her and took her inside the house. I sat with her and told her, "Look at me, I am all right, everything is all right." When she finally calmed down I went out again.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I looked at the cars and saw that the lead car was the most badly damaged, especially its right rear door. It too had sunk down to its rims. Tanveer's hair was standing straight up, I suppose because the blasts had created static. Any normal car would have been blown to bits, destroyed beyond recognition. As it was, human flesh and blood were all over the cars. They were a gruesome sight.
The squad car that had been behind me was also very badly damaged. All in all, I was told, fourteen people had been killed. Three of our people had been injured. The poor policeman standing at the gap between the two roads had come in front of the first suicide van and been blown to bits. A police van had stopped the second suicide bomber from hitting my car by ramming into his vehicle. Th e van had blown up, killing all five policemen in it, including an inspector. It was heartrending. Th e first suicide bomber had hit the nine-inch-high (22.5-centimeter) divider between the roads and rolled back, probably because he had made a cold start with a heavy, bomb-laden vehicle. If the police hadn't blocked the oncoming traffic, God alone knows how many more would have been killed or mutilated.
We later discovered that there was supposed to be a third suicide bomber to attack me frontally where the road had no median divider. For some reason he didn't materialize. At the time I thought that either he had lost his nerve after seeing what had happened to his two co- terrorists, or he thought that they must have gotten me, and ran away to save himself and come back to kill another day. If he had not abandoned the jo b he would almost certainly have succeeded in killing me, for by then my car was in very bad shape and was "naked," without protection. Such are the ways of the Almighty.
Th e investigation into my would-be assassins led us to some of al Qaeda's top people in Pakistan. The full story of that investigation needs to be told, because it represents one of our greatest victories in the war on terror. I will relate it in full in these pages. But first, you need to know how I came to be the man the assassins were targeting. Th e story of my life coincides almost from the beginning with the story of my country—so the chapters that follow are a biography not only of a man, but of Pakistan as well.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

PART ONE


IN THE BEGINNING


CHAPTER 1


TRAIN TO PAKISTAN



Date: August 14, 1947

Place: India and Pakistan


Event: The twilight of the British Empire, with the independence of
India and the creation of the nation-state of Pakistan.

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These were troubled times. These were momentous times. There was the light of freedom; there was the darkness of genocide. It
was the dawn of hope; it was the twilight of empire. It was a tale of two countries in the making.
On a hot and humid summer day, a train hurtled down the dusty plains from Delhi to Karachi. Hundreds of people were piled into its compartments, stuffed in its corridors, hanging from the sides, and sitting on the roof There was not an inch to spare. But the heat and dust were the least of the passengers' worries. Th e tracks were littered with dead bodies—men, women, and children, many hideously mutilated. The passengers held fast to the hope of a new life, a new beginning in a new country—Pakistan—that they had won after great struggle and sacrifice.
Thousands of Muslim families left their homes and hearths in India that August, taking only the barest of necessities with them. Train after train transported them into the unknown. Many did not make it—they were tortured, raped, and killed along the way by vengeful Sikhs and Hindus. Many Hindus and Sikhs heading in the opposite direction, leaving Pakistan for India, were butchered in turn by Muslims. Many a train left India swarming with passengers only to arrive in Pakistan carrying nothing but the deafening silence of death. All those who made this journey and lived have a tale to tell.
This is the story of a middle-class family, a husband and wife who left Delhi with their three sons. Their second-born boy was then four years and three days old. All that he remembered of the train journey was his mother's tension. She feared massacre by the Sikhs. Her tension increased every time the train stopped at a station and she saw dead bodies lying along the tracks and on the platforms. The train had to pass through the whole of the Punjab, where a lot of killings were taking place.

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The little boy also remembered his father's anxiety about a box that he was guarding closely. It was with him all the time. He protected it with his life, even sleeping with it under his head, like a pillow. There were 700,000 rupees in it, a princely sum in those days. The money was destined for the foreign office of their new country.
The little boy also remembered arriving in Karachi on August 15. He remembered, too, the swarm of thankful people who greeted them. There was food, there was joy, there were tears, there was laughter, and there was a lot of hugging and kissing. There were thanksgiving prayers too. People ate their fill.

I have started my narration in the third person because the story of that August train is something I have been told by my elders, not something I remember in detail. I have little memory of my early years. I was born in the old Mughal part of Delhi on August 11, 1943, in my paternal family home, called Nehar Wali Haveli—"House Next to the Canal." A haveli is a typical Asian-style home built around a central courtyard. Nehar means canal.
My brother Javed, who is something of a genius, was born one year before me. When my younger brother Naved arrived later, our family was complete.
Nehar Wali Haveli belonged to my great-grandfather, Khan Bahadur Qazi Mohtashim ud din, who was the deputy collector of revenue in Delhi. He arranged for his daughter Amna Khatoon, my paternal grandmother, to be married to Syed Sharfuddin. The honorific Syed denotes a family that is descended directly from the Holy Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. I am told that generations ago my father's family came from Saudi Arabia.
My grandfather was said to be an exceptionally handsome man and was a landlord of some stature from Panipat, in northern India. He left my grandmother, Amna Khatoon, and married a second time, leaving their two sons, Syed Musharrafuddin (my father) and Syed Ashrafud- din, to their mother. She moved with her sons to her father's home, where I would be born.

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My father, Syed Musharrafuddin, and his elder brother graduated from the famous Aligarh Muslim University, now in India. My father then joined the foreign office as an accountant. He ultimately rose to the position of director. He died just a few months after I took the reins of my country.
Khan Bahadur Qazi Fazle Ilahi, my mother's father, was a judge— the word qazi means judge. He was progressive, very enlightened in thought, and quite well off He spent liberally on the education of all his sons and daughters. My mother, Zarin, graduated from Delhi University and earned a master's degree from Lucknow University at a time when few Indian Muslim women ventured out to get even a basic education. After graduation, she married my father and shifted to Nehar Wali Haveli.
My parents were not very well off, and both had to work to make ends meet, especially to give their three sons the best education they could afford. The house was sold in 1946, and my parents moved to an austere government home built in a hollow square at Baron Road, Ne w Delhi. We stayed in this house until we migrated to Pakistan in 1947.
My mother became a schoolteacher to augment the family income. My parents were close, and their shared passion was to give their children the best possible upbringing—our diet, our education, and our values. My mother walked two miles (more than three kilometers) to school and two miles back, not taking a tonga (a horse-drawn carriage), to save money to buy fruit for us. We always looked forward to that fruit.
Providing a good education to our children has always remained the focus of our family, a value that both my parents took from their parents and instilled in us. Though we were not by any means rich, we always studied in the top schools. In Delhi, Javed and I joined Church High School, but I have no memory of it. Neither do I have any memory of friends or neighbors.

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CHAPTER 2

SETTLING IN KARACHI


Karachi is a very old city; like most of our cities, it dates back to antiquity. It started off as a fishing village on the coast of the Arabian Sea. In 1947 it became the capital of Pakistan. The capital has since been shifted to Islamabad, a picturesque new city nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas.
On our arrival in Karachi, my father was allotted two rooms in a long barracks often two-room units in a place called Jacob Lines. There was a kitchen and an old-style toilet that had no flush mechanism. Along one side of the building ran a veranda covered by a green wooden trellis. Other uprooted members of our family—assorted aunts and uncles and cousins—came to live with us. At one time there were eighteen of us living in those two rooms. But we were all happy. I now realize that we accepted all this discomfort because our morale was supremely high—as were our spirit of sacrifice and our sense of accommodation. Actually, we could have filed a claim to get a house in place of the huge home that my maternal grandfather had owned in Delhi. Left behind, it had become 'enemy property'. But for some reason no one pursued this.
One night I saw a thief hiding behind the sofa in our apartment. Though I was only a little boy, I was bold enough to quietly slip out to my mother, who was sleeping on the veranda (my father had left for Turkey). I told her that there was a thief inside, and she started screaming. Our neighbours assembled. The thief was caught with the only thing of value we had—a bundle of clothes. While he was being thrashed, he cried out that he was poor and very hungry. This evoked such sympathy that when the police came to take him away, my mother declared that he was not a thief and served him a hearty meal instead. It was a sign of the sense of accommodation and of helping each other that we shared in those days.

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Our cook, Shaukat, who had come with my mother when she got married—in her dowry, so to speak—also came with us from Delhi. He was an excellent cook. He now lives in Hyderabad, Sindh, and I last met him when I was a major general.
My brother Javed and I were enrolled in St. Patrick's School, run by Catholic missionaries, but I don't remember much about it at this time, except that we had to walk a mile to it and a mile back (about 1.5 kilometers each way).
My father started working at the new foreign office, which was then located in a building called Mohatta Palace. It was later to become the residence of Miss Fatima Jinnah, sister of Pakistan's founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, whom we respectfully call Quaid-e-Azam, "great leader." It is now a museum. We would visit him there sometimes. I remember that the facilities were so sparse that he didn't even have a chair to sit on. He used a wooden crate instead. Often the office ran short of paper clips, thumbtacks, and even pens. My father would use the thorns of a desert bush that grows everywhere in Karachi to pin his papers together. He would also sometimes write with a thorn by dipping it in ink. This was the state of affairs in the new Pakistan, not least because India was stalling and raising all sorts of hurdles rather than sending us our portion of the pre-Partition assets. Actually, the British had decided to quit India—"grant freedom," as they arrogantly called it—in June 1948. But Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last viceroy, persuaded London that Britain could not hold on till then and had the date moved forward to August 1947. This was announced in April
1947. In the frenetic four months before Partition, one of the many decisions made mutually by the representatives of Pakistan, India, and the British government was the allocation of assets to the two new countries. No w free and no longer under the dictates of the British government, India was not honoring its commitment.

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My father was a very honest man, not rich at all, but he would give money to the poor—"because their need is greater." This was a point of contention with my mother, who was always struggling to make ends meet. "First meet your own needs before meeting the needs of others," she would tell him. Like most Asian mothers, despite their demure public demeanor, my mother was the dominant influence on our family. But on the issue of giving to the needy my father always got his way, because he wouldn't talk about it.
My mother had to continue working to support us. Instead of becoming a schoolteacher again, she joined the customs service. I remember her in her crisp white uniform going to Korangi Creek for the arrival of the seaplane, which she would inspect. I also remember that she once seized a cargo of smuggled goods and was given a big reward for it.
One sad event that I remember vividly was the death of our founder, the Quaid-e-Azam, on September 11, 1948. It was akin to a thirteen- month-old baby losing its only parent. Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah has best been described by his biographer, the American writer Stanley Wolpert: "Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three." His death shook the confidence and exuberance of the infant nation. The funeral procession had to pass through Bundar Road—the main avenue of Karachi—very close to our house. I remember sitting on a wall along the road for hours waiting for the funeral cortege, with friends from our locality. When it came, everyone cried. I could not hold back my tears. It was a day of the greatest national loss and mourning. The nation felt a sense of hopelessness and uncertainty. It is to the credit of the Quaid's successor, Liaqat Ali Khan, our first prime minister, that he ably pulled the nation out of its depression.
Those were happy years in Karachi. Hardship was overcome by hope and the excitement of being in our new country and playing one's part in building it. This excitement and hope infused the young too. The thrill that comes from the memory of hope to be fulfilled, the excitement of great things to come, often returns to me. Once again I am transported back to being a little boy on the train to Pakistan. Those years in Karachi were an important time for me, as indeed they were for all of us who had taken such a risk by migrating to our new country.
Gradually, as we settled down, the initial exuberance wore off, and the uncertainties of our present and future began to weigh on my parents.
A metamorphosis took place in me in the first months and years after Partition. An uprooted little boy found earth that was natural to him. He took root in it forever. I would protect that earth with my life.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

CHAPTER 3

TURKEY : THE FORMATIVE YEARS


wo years after arriving in Karachi, my father was posted to our embassy in Ankara, Turkey, as superintendent of the accounts department. My brothers and I were very excited by the idea of going to another country. Ou r seven-year stay there would prove to have a huge influence on my worldview.
Turkey and Pakistan have many things in common—first and foremost, Islam. Just as Pakistan was a new country in 1947, Atatiirk's country was a "New Turkey." With the fall of the Ottoman caliphate, Mustafa Kemal had saved Turkey from balkanization and modernized it by dragging it out of dogma and obscurantism. His grateful people call him Ataturk, "father of the turks." As a victorious commander he was perhaps inevitably also called pasha, "general." In fact, even his second name, Kemal, which means "wonderful," was given to him by a teacher because he was quite remarkable as a young boy. Thus, Mustafa Kemal Pasha Atatiirk.
Much of Pakistan's cuisine originated in Turkey. So does Urdu, our national language—my parents' tongue. Ordu is a Turkish word meaning "army." Two characteristics of the Turkish people have made a special imprint on my mind. On e is their deep sense of patriotism and pride in everything Turkish. The other is their very visible love and affection for Pakistan and Pakistanis.
For three young boys, the journey to Turkey was filled with wonder. First, we sailed on HM S Dwatka from Karachi to Basra in Iraq. Traveling by ship was a unique experience for us. The n we took a train to Ankara, a journey of about three or four days, but very enjoyable com-pared with the fateful train to Pakistan in 1947, a trip fraught with fear and danger.

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We found a house in Ankara and stayed in it for a year. We would move to three more houses, staying for a year each in the second and third, before settling in the fourth for the remainder of our time in Turkey. These were only medium-size houses, but comfortable and adequate for our needs—certainly a far cry from the two-room apartment we had left behind.
As a working woman, my mother joined the Pakistani embassy as a typist. She was a very good typist and won an embassy competition for speed. Perhaps that is why she is also a good harmonium player. She had a good voice too. Both my parents loved music and dancing, especially ballroom dancing. My father was a very elegant, very graceful dancer. During the coronation of the queen of England, there was a dance competition in which many of our embassy people participated. After a process of elimination, my parents won the first prize in ballroom dancing.
Naturally, the embassy staff did their utmost to help us settle down, but it was really our Turkish relatives who made us feel at home. On e of my mother's brothers, Ghazi Ghulam Haider, who became the first English-language newscaster on Radio Pakistan, was—how shall I put it?—a great romantic. He was always falling in love, and every so often we would discover that he had married again. Uncle Haider's first wife was a half-Turkish woman whose mother was a full Turk. Her brother, Hikmet, left India for Turkey and settled down there.
On reaching Ankara my father tried to locate Hikmet, even placing an advertisement in the newspapers, without success. Then, as luck would have it, a Turkish woman who knew Hikmet joined the Pakistani embassy as a typist. Her name was Mehershan. Hikmet was in Istanbul. She telephoned him, and he came to Ankara to meet us. He introduced us to our other relatives. We would meet every so often, and we were always in and out of each other's homes. On e of those relatives was Colonel Kadri Bey. He was married to Leman Khanum. Of their two sons, Metin was extremely handsome, with a golden-brown moustache and curly hair, and Chetin is a wonderful man. I am still in contact with them.

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For the first six or eight months of our stay, my brothers and I were enrolled in a Turkish school. The English taught there was rudimentary, but the school helped us to learn very good Turkish, which went a long way in enabling us to become good friends with Turkish boys. Children at that age learn very fast and very well, and our accent and pronunciation became perfect. Soon, we were so fluent that our Turkish friends couldn't tell we were foreigners. Even now, when I speak Turkish in Pakistan, it is very different from that of our interpreters. But we needed English as our medium of instruction. My parents discovered a German woman who had a private school attended by a number of foreign boys and girls. We were admitted to her school and studied there for the rest of our time in Turkey. She was Madame Kudret—Kudret being her Turkish husband's surname. She laid great emphasis on mathematics and geography, and that is why Javed and I became very good in both subjects; we were especially good at making calculations in our heads. Madame Kudret had a unique ability to make us enjoy mathematics, and she taught us easy methods for mental calculations. She honed our skills by making the children compete with one another. My later marks were always the best in mathematics and geography, thanks to Madame Kudret. Even in class ten (the equivalent of tenth grade in the United States), when my grades dropped dramatically for reasons that I shall explain, I earned a perfect score in mathematics. Madame Kudret also taught us world geography; we learned how to draw and read maps and how to identify countries, capitals, oceans, rivers, deserts, and mountains. This knowledge helped me immensely when I joined the Pakistan Army.

Since Madame Kudret's school was coeducational, there were non- Turkish girls there too. All three of us brothers were very shy around girls. They would invite us to their homes and parties, but we would invariably feel very awkward. I think they realized this and found it very amusing: ten-year-old girls are far more mature than ten-year-old boys, and they could run circles around us.
It was in Turkey, too, that I developed my lifelong fondness for sport. I trained in gymnastics and played volleyball, badminton, and football. Badminton is not a Turkish sport, but it was played in our embassy. Turkey is a soccer-crazed nation. Of course we also played marbles, as little boys do the world over, but this made my mother very angry. Ou r hands would be chapped in winter, sometimes to the point of bleeding, making it obvious that I had been playing marbles. I would bandage my hands and hide the marbles from my mother by putting them in socks.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I was a precocious but naughty little boy, always good at my studies, but not brilliant like Javed. I was not very studious; Javed was. Those who are familiar with Mark Twain's works will understand when I say that I was something of a Tom Sawyer, with the difference that I went to school happily.
The orchard in the Lebanese embassy in front of our house had many fruit trees. I observed the guard there and noticed that he would take a short round of the embassy building in one direction, and then a much longer round coming back. It was on the longer round that I would get into the embassy compound and pluck fruit from the trees.
Since I got involved in boyish games and pranks and often did things that other boys wouldn't or couldn't do, I became very popular in my neighborhood. Sometimes my mother would discover my antics and get very angry. She would even get angry with my friends when they came to collect me. "Go away," she would say, "let him study." This would upset me, but there was little I could do except bide my time and wait for an opportune moment to steal out to play with them.
On e outdoor activity that my mother could not keep me from was accompanying my father on duck shoots. He would go with the embassy staff to a lake called Gol Bashi, which is now in a crowded part of Ankara. I found these shoots most enjoyable and adventurous. The most exciting part was the silent, motionless wait when the ducks would fly in, and it was even more exciting when occasionally I was allowed to shoot. I can never forget my first successful shot, when I got a duck in the water. I must admit that I never succeeded with flying shots.
Like neighborhoods the world over, ours had boys' gangs. We would fight, but the fighting was nothing serious. We threw stones at each other and made shields with which to protect ourselves. Each gang had its own flag. Even at that age I was very good at making strategies and planning tactics to ambush and trap other gangs. We would lure them into an area, ambush them, and run off with their flag to the top of a hill. It was defeat for them and victory for us!

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Being the outdoors type, I suffered torture when I was forced to stay indoors. I had more than my fair share of energy, and it had to be expended somehow. It had to find outlets outside the house; burning it up inside was impossible. Of course, in those days there was no television, which has turned many of today's boys into couch potatoes.
Javed was very fond of books, but I read them only when I had to. We became members of the British Council Library and would take out our weekly quota of two books each. Being a voracious reader, Javed would finish his books in a couple of days and then read my books in the next two—if not sooner! Before the week was up he would want to return to the library and take out four more books. I had perhaps read one, or not even that. So I would insist that we wait until the end of the week, after which I would want to renew one of the books and take out only one new one. This would upset Javed and lead to arguments.
We had a Turkish maid named Fatima whom we respectfully called Hanim, meaning "madame"—thus, Fatima Hanim. Ou r parents made it a point that we show respect to elders regardless of their station in life. We were not allowed to call our domestic staff "servants"—they were employees who earned an honest living and deserved respect.
Fatima Hanim was an old, uneducated woman, quite a simpleton really, but extremely hardworking. We would tell her that the earth is flat and that Pakistan is at its edge and when you look down you can see paradise. Either she really believed us or she went along with our game, because she always insisted that we take her to Pakistan so that she could look down and see paradise.
There were two military attaches at our embassy—colonels Mustafa and Ismail—whose smart ceremonial uniforms attracted me to the army at a very young age. But a man who had a greater impact on me was Hameed, their personal assistant. Hameed was a junior commissioned officer, a very smart and handsome young man from Kashmir. He was very fond of our family and would take me and Javed out on long treks in the hills. There was a zoo very far away, and we would trek up to it and then return on foot. Hameed was very good at games and would coach us. It was he who taught me badminton and volleyball.

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Across the road from our embassy was the house of a retired Turkish general who had become a big industrialist. He had a beautiful daughter named Reyan. She could see Hameed sitting in his office from her window. On e day he was called and invited to have tea at their house. Much to Hameed's consternation, the old general offered him his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage. They married, and it caused quite a stir. When Hameed was transferred back to Pakistan, she went along with him. He was so bright that he advanced in rank and retired as a major. He started his own business and did quite well. The last time I met him was when I was a brigade major in Karachi. Sadly, he suffered a heart attack and died suddenly. On one of my foreign trips as president of Pakistan my wife and I met Reyan in London.

My love of dogs began in Turkey. We had a beautiful brown dog named Whiskey. I loved him. He was killed in a road accident but left with me a lifelong love of dogs. I prefer small dogs, though, not the huge ones. This surprises my friends, for they expect a commando to have something like a rottweiler. I think people who keep rottweilers, and similar dogs, have a need to cultivate a macho image.
Ou r seven years in Turkey passed in a flash. We departed with very heavy hearts, saying good-bye to a country that we had come to love, to our relatives, and to our many good friends. We were all crying. Those were among the most enjoyable and formative years of my life. Our journey back was filled with wonder, too, for my father drove his small Austin Mini up to Basra. We drove through Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon. We crossed Jordan into Iraq, ending at the port city of Basra. From there our car was put into the hold of a ship and we returned to Karachi by sea, just as we had left it seven years earlier.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

CHAPTER 4

HOME



On October 1956, when I was thirteen years old, we arrived back in Karachi. The sheer hassle of settling down dulled much of the pain of leaving Turkey and our many friends and relatives there. Coming home has its own charm, too, of course, even though our home was very different now. In the seven years that we had been away, Karachi had exploded into a large and vibrant cosmopolitan metropolis. The city was humming with life.
My father reported back to the foreign office, still located in Mohatta Palace. We soon found a house in Nazimabad Block 3, one of many new settlements that had mushroomed after independence to accommodate the millions who had fled India. It was well planned, with wide roads and boulevards. Most of its neighborhoods were middle- class or lower-middle-class. Ours was one of the few families on the street to own a car.
My mother soon found another job. My parents were friendly with a Dutch couple, Mr. and Mrs. Brink. Mr. Brink was the general manager of the Philips factory, located in a new industrial area called SITE, and my mother became his secretary. Her pay was good, and one of the perks of the job was that she got a Philips radio at a discount. She worked there for a long time. "Years later, I stayed for three days with the Brinks in the Netherlands.

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That fall, Javed and I took the entrance examination for classes nine and eight, respectively, at St. Patrick's, the old and highly regarded Catholic missionary school for boys that we had attended earlier. Both of us did very badly in Urdu, not having studied that language in Turkey. Javed got in anyway, because of his excellent showing in every other subject. I didn't, and was temporarily admitted to a school called Mary Colaco. My parents immediately worked to bring our Urd u up to scratch. We picked it up quickly, it was, after all, their tongue. They both taught it to us, and they also hired a tutor. I became good enough to get into St. Patrick's after three or four months, though I suspect that my swift admission may also have had something to do with Javed's high score on the first quarterly examination he took. They must have thought that the brother of such a bright boy couldn't be a completely hopeless case.
My younger brother, Naved, joined St. Patrick's School later, in class six, in 1957. He was a steady boy who earned average grades.
In Ankara we had walked to school through beautiful fields. In Karachi our school was too far for walking, and the route wasn't pretty either. Sometimes my father dropped us off in his car; usually we went by bus. Th e bus was always brimming with people, with hardly ever any vacant seats. To return home, Javed and I walked from school to the Regal Cinema nearby, where the bus had to slow down at a turning. There, we would both jum p onto the moving bus, thanks to our gymnastics—a dangerous practice, but boys at that age normally throw caution to the wind. It would take us half an hour to get home, dead beat from the heat and the humidity.

Our neighborhood, Nazimabad, was a tough place to live, and it has become tougher since. I would not call it the Harlem of Karachi, but perhaps it was the South Bronx. A boy had to be street-smart to survive. There were the inevitable street gangs, and needless to say, I joined one. Needless to say, too, I was one of the tough boys.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Flying kites is a favorite sport in Pakistan, but it is done with a difference. Here, as in Afghanistan, people dip the string in glue filled with crushed glass. There are kite fights, with one flier trying to cut the string of the other to make him lose his kite. The flyers' fingers always get cut, and bleed. The cuts are very painful, much worse than paper cuts. The severed kite floats slowly to the ground and, in an unspoken tradition, the boy who catches it gets to keep it.
A recent popular American novel set in Afghanistan, The Kite Runner, brings this tradition to life, and my own experience included a variation of a key moment in that story. There was a bully in our area who would walk up to the boy who had caught a kite and demand that he hand it over, or else. Most boys would oblige. On e day my older brother got hold of some string from a cut kite. The bully, accompanied by two other boys, rudely asked him to hand it over. I held my brother's hand and said, "Why should we give you the string?" Then, without thinking, I punched the bully hard. A fight ensued, and I really thrashed him. After that people recognized me as a sort of boxer, and I became known as a dada geer—an untranslatable term that means, roughly, a tough guy whom you don't mess with. The lesson I learned was that if you call a bully's bluff, he crumbles. The secret is to stand your ground for a few seconds, and your initial fright vanishes. This lesson later stood me in good stead as a commando.


I remember St. Patrick's with great affection. I learned a lot there, and not only from books. Of course I couldn't help being naughty, and I would get punished, especially by one teacher, Mr. De Lima. I think that at the back of their minds, my teachers compared me unfavourably with my brother, who continued to get superb grades. Sometimes I was made to kneel in a corner; sometimes I had to stand outside the classroom. Once when I was standing outside, I saw my father coming to meet with the principal. I sneaked behind the building so that he wouldn't see that I was being punished.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The punishment I remember best happened when Father Todd caught me throwing chalk at another boy in class and gave me six of the choicest blows on my posterior with a sturdy cane. It stung like hell. When, as president of Pakistan, I returned to St. Patrick's for a reunion, I reminded Father Todd of the caning. "I felt like sitting on ice, Father," I told him during my speech. An old classmate of mine came to the microphone and said, "Father, did you know at that time that you were caning the presidential seat?" Everyone laughed. Father Todd is a good soul and I have great regard for him, as I do for all my teachers.
On e teacher was Mr. Mendis. He was very good and worked on building our character. I can never forget how he would try to inculcate in us the attributes that make a gentleman. He himself personified the qualities of a gentleman.
Of course my pranks weren't limited to school. My romantic uncle Ghazi Ghulam Haider, the one who married the half-Turkish woman, was great at mixing with youngsters and would take the lead in many practical jokes. He would pile eight or ten of us boys into his car—a German Opel Rekord—and go looking for mischief.
One day, he took us to Frere Gardens, where people go to relax in the evenings. He spotted a man who was as bald as a golfball, sitting on a bench. For some reason, the man had oiled his bald pate, making matters worse, for it was shining like a mirror and inviting trouble. "I'll give five rupees to the boy who slaps that man on the head," announced Uncle Haider. We all shrank back, asking him how we could do such a thing and get away with it. "Watch me," said my redoubtable uncle. He walked right up behind the man and gave him a tight smack right in the middle of his shiny head, saying, "Bashir, there you are. I've been searching for you." It must have stung like hell. The baldy spun around in shock, but before he could say anything my uncle apologized profusely. "I am so extremely sorry, my brother. You are a carbon copy of a good friend of mine and I mistook you for him. He was supposed to be here." The poor man, still in shock, shifted to another bench some distance away, looking sheepishly this way and that. We were aghast but also relieved: that was the end of that, we hoped, and Uncle Haider would think up something less dangerous and embarrassing next. Lo and behold, he raised the stakes. "No w I will give ten rupees," our disbelieving ears heard him saying, "to the boy who smacks his bald head again." We were appalled. To get away with it once was a miracle. To get away with it twice was asking for very serious trouble. Whe n we demurred, Uncle Haider said, "Watch me." He stole up behind the man again and smacked him even harder on the head, saying, "O Bashir, there you are. I jus t saw a man who looks exactly like you and smacked him on the head." The poor man spun around again in utter consternation, his eyes wild with disbelief His mouth gaped like a goldfish. Before he could get a word out, Uncle Haider started acting contrite. He apologized even more profusely, asking in mock dismay, "Ho w was I to know that you had shifted seats?" Without giving the stunned man a chance to say anything, he walked away. We all rolled on the grass with laughter.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Don't get Uncle Haider wrong, though. He was in the air force and had won the sword in the Indian Air Force before Partition.

Before I reached class ten, at the age of fifteen, I had been an above- average student, usually among the first four in my class. That year, however, my grades dropped dramatically. The cause: my first romance. A first crush is a distraction that all young people must suffer sooner or later, but different people handle it differently. The later a man gets it, the more of an ass he makes of himself I let it become the focus of my life, not least because it came out of the blue. Truth to tell, she made the first move. I was still too shy to initiate a romance, let alone woo a girl.

She was a neighbor, about my age, perhaps a year older. I found it far more convenient to be wooed than to have to court a girl myself Anyway, I could think of nothing else except her. She didn't know English, and I wasn't brilliant in Urdu . A friend would read her letters to me in Urdu, and I would dictate my reply to him in Urdu. The person who would deliver the letters was my younger brother's friend. He was slightly built and could squeeze in and out of most places. He would deliver my letters and pick up hers, by quietly sneaking into her house.

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I went so far as to get my Nani Amma, my maternal grandmother, into the act without her realizing it. She was a lovely woman who used to wear a burka, as conservative Muslim women do. I would tell Nani Amma that she must visit the neighbors, and then direct her to the girl's house. Before she went, I would hide a letter in a pocket of her burka and pass a message to the girl explaining where to find it. Poor Nani Amma would go to the girl's house as an unwitting courier with a romantic letter in her pocket. Had she known, she would have been quite upset, to put it mildly. Certainly my mother would have come to know of it.

This girl was very beautiful. It was puppy love, really, just an infatuation, and it lasted only until my parents moved to another house, far away on Garden Road, near the Karachi Zoo with its beautiful gardens.

On Garden Road, I fell straight into my next romance. She was a beautiful Bengali girl from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). This crush was somewhat less frivolous than my first. She is happily married now, and lives in Bangladesh. I think my mother suspected all along, because I suddenly slipped in my studies. She wasn't sure, but she became very annoyed with me for my poor results. I did well enough on my finals for class ten, ranking in the second division and missing the first by just four points. I earned the first prize in mathematics.
At that point, my mother decided that Javed would go into the civil service of Pakistan (CSP), the most prestigious branch of our bureaucracy. Her youngest son, Naved, she decreed, would become a medical doctor. With my excess energy and mischievousness, I would go into the army. And so it came to pass.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

CHAPTER 5

LEAVING THE NEST


could not get into the army right away. First I had to go to college to get through classes eleven and twelve, which we call freshman of arts (FA) or, if you take science, freshman of science (FSc). This is unlike the American and British systems, where grades eleven and twelve are part of high school. I chose nonmedical science. Only after doing my FSc would I be eligible to join the army, provided I passed the military's highly exacting entrance examinations and arduous physical tests.

Frankly, none of the colleges in Karachi were good enough at the time, so my parents sent me to the famous Forman Christian College in Lahore, better known as FC College, which is run by American missionaries. Lahore was the obvious choice. It has long been a center of learning, art, culture, poetry, and literature, not just of Pakistan but of the entire subcontinent. The college principal was a wonderful American gentleman who mixed with all the students. Another American I remember there was our director of physical education, Mr. Mumby. He was very good at organizing athletic tournaments.

Javed went to Government College—now a university—in Lahore, a school for the brightest students. Yet another of Lahore's famous colleges is Islamia College, which among other things produced most of our international cricketers in the early years of Pakistan.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Forman Christian College was known as a college for anglicized "modern" students; Government College attracted the more studious types, and Islamia the more earthy types. All three have produced many leaders for Pakistan in various fields because they keep their students grounded in native culture and history, quite unlike those boys who went to foreign universities, which have mostly produced political leaders disconnected from Pakistan's culture and history, leaders who have damaged the country, not only with their corruption but also with their alien political and economic philosophies.

I was keenly aware of never having lived away from home on my own. I didn't realize then that I would never return to live with my parents as a dependent. A time would come, as it naturally does in life's course, when roles would be reversed and my parents would come and live with me. But for now, I was on my own and terribly homesick. However, I soon got into the swing of things and made good friends.

I was assigned room and board in Kennedy Hall. Its warden, Mr. Dutta, was also our English teacher. He was a good man, tough but fair. Forman Christian is a beautiful college and has fine facilities for studies and sport, the latter being compulsory. You had to play at least one game. Athletically I became a jack-of-all-trades, competing in gymnastics, cross-country running, bodybuilding, and athletics. I was fourth in cross-country, was the top gymnast, and was third in the "Mr. FC College" bodybuilding competition. All in all I earned the most certificates. Muhammad Iqbal Butt, who had competed creditably in the Mr. Universe competition, told me at the time that I had a most muscular physique.

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Campus life taught me independence. I interacted with boys from all backgrounds, even from abroad. Some were rich, some not; some were modern, some religious. There were quite a few East Africans. There were female students, too. I got along with all of them. I made friends with boys from the Niazi tribe, especially Amanullah Niazi, who was senior to me and was later to become a brigadier. They persuaded me to run in the elections for first-year representative. That is when I gave my first public speech. They made me stand on a table. Trembling with nervousness, I managed to tell the listeners that if they elected me I would look after their interests. I didn't enjoy it a bit. The students from Karachi, the Niazis, and the East Africans supported me, and I won. Tariq Aziz, who was my principal secretary after I became president and was later appointed secretary to the national security council, was there too. He was senior to me and we were not that friendly, probably because he was a "good boy," reluctant to join me in mischief-making.


My pranks continued. As early as seven or eight in the evening the hostel gates would shut, and no student could go out, nor could any visitor come in. However, there was a mango tree next to a hedge at the hostel periphery, and thanks to my gymnastics, I could climb the tree and jum p over and across the high hedge. So would some of my friends. We would take in a movie from nine PM to midnight, usually at the Regal Cinema, and return to college on foot because tonga drivers refused to go that far at night. Obviously, we couldn't get back in, but just outside the main gate of the college there was a mosque, and no one could stop us from sleeping there, as mosques have traditionally been a haven for wayfarers. Early in the morning, when the college gates opened, we would sneak back in.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

It was in FC College that I learned how to make a time bomb, which I later used as a commando to good effect. In today's age of terror, this is hardly the thing to say, but those were relatively innocent times, and the only kind of homemade bomb then known was the Molotov cocktail. I discovered that if you take a normal firecracker and attach a filterless cigarette to its fuse, it becomes a timed fuse, depending on the length of unsmoked cigarette. On e day, three or four of us decided to give Mr. Datta, the warden, a scare. We left a timed firecracker in a big steel trash can outside his house so that it would make an awful bang. We placed another outside the assistant warden's house, and a third inside a mailbox at the entrance. The n I went back to my room. The firecracker in Mr. Datta's trash can went off first, with a defeaning bang, just like a small bomb. The trash can made it worse, for it amplified the sound. Everyone started running toward the warden's house. I did, too. As soon as we got there, the "bomb" in the assistant warden's trash can exploded. We all ran there, at which point the firecracker in the mailbox exploded. There was utter confusion. It was terrible.

A few days later Mr. Datta got hold of one of my friends, Hameed, and asked him for the name of the boy behind the bombs. If he didn't reveal it, he was told, he would be either suspended or expelled. Hameed, who was from Hyderabad, Sindh, told me about the sword hanging over his head. I knew it would be unconscionable if he were punished so severely for something that I had done, so I told him to tell Mr. Datta the truth. He said that Pervez Musharraf was the culprit.

Mr. Datta called me to his house that evening. On the way, I wondered what I would tell my parents if I were thrown out. Mr. Datta began by asking me who was behind the "bombing episode." I confessed. "Pervez, you are the block monitor, and you did this?" he said, visibly disappointed. I really felt ashamed of myself. I said that I was very sorry and it would not happen again. He did not do anything. All he said was, "OK, never do this again," and let me go. That is when I learned the power of truth, a lesson that has never left me.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

My first brush with death, as silly as it was, happened at FC College, thanks to a mango tree. It was laden with fruit. My friends told me to use my skill as a gymnast and climb the tree to pluck some mangoes. I shimmied up. Hanging high up from a branch, I would swing upward and pluck the fruit with my feet. Things went fine and I had plucked quite a few mangoes when on a high swing the branch in my hands broke. I came crashing down, hit the ground very hard, and passed out. My friends thought that I was dead. I opened my eyes quite some time later in Mr. Dutta's house, under a doctor's care. I was young and strong and soon recovered.

I was always getting into scrapes. Lahore's most famous girls' college is Kinnaird, and you invariably see a lot of boys hanging around outside it, especially in the evenings. One day there was a debate at FC College in which some girls from Kinnaird had been invited to participate. A boy sitting behind me kept hitting my chair with his foot, really irritating me. I repeatedly told him to stop, but he would not. With girls from Kinnaird there, my testosterone level had probably shot up, so I told him to step outside. He did, and a big fight ensued, but soon the other boys separated us. They told me that he belonged to a club of wrestlers headed by Badi Pehalwan and they would return to beat me up. But they never did.

If, from all this, you have concluded that I was not intensely focused on my studies, you would not be far wrong. I was more involved in extracurricular activities, both healthy and naughty. Lahore is a great city, with numerous attractions, particularly for a young boy free of direct parental supervision, but in reality my mother and father were always with me through the values that they had inculcated in their sons. Those values were always present to stop me from crossing the line between right and wrong. Of course, my parents were very concerned about my studies, but I had already appeared before the Inter Services Selection Board and been selected for the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy as a cadet before my final examinations for FA. After a three-year course, if successful, I would get my commission as an officer of the Pakistan Army. So I took my FSc finals somewhat nonchalantly and managed to get through, because the actual result had no bearing on my selection by the army, as long as I passed. My life as a carefree teenager was over. The longest chapter of my story was about to begin, a chapter that would define my life and career as soldier and statesman.

[shaunmike]

According to Time magazine, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf holds 'the world's most dangerous job'. He has twice come within inches of assassination. His forces have caught over 670 members of Al Qaeda, yet many others remain at large and active, including Osama bin Laden
and Ayman Al Zawahiri. Long locked in a deadly embrace with its nuclear neighbour India, Pakistan has twice come close to full-scale war since it first exploded a nuclear bomb in 1998. As President Musharraf struggles for the security and political future of his nation, the stakes could not be higher for the world at large.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

PART TWO

LIFE IN THE ARMY

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[Dark Saint Alaick]

CHAPTE R 6

THE POTTER'S WHEEL


Have you ever seen a potter going about his work? First he carefully chooses the clay, poking it, pushing it, feeling it between thumb and forefinger. After making his choice he wets it just so, with the exact amount of clean water, kneading it into fine dough with just the correct consistency. He then puts it on his potter's wheel and spins it at the right speed, then fastidiously fashions it into shape. Next he places it in the kiln, heated to the correct temperature. After the exact amount of time—not a moment before, not a moment later—he takes it out of the oven. No w the piece is ready.

This is exactly how a soldier is made. Ho w good he is depends on how good the potter is, how good his choice of clay was, and how good his hand was on the wheel. A cadet in a military academy is like clay on the wheel. When he is shaped, he is let loose in the oven of army life. Ho w good a soldier he becomes depends on the fire that bakes him every day of his life in the army.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I was only eighteen when I entered the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in 1961. Winning a spot was a cinch for an athletic, intelligent boy. To begin with, there was a written test in Karachi. I was selected for further tests and went up to Rawalpindi by train and then on to Kohat in the North-West Frontier. The tests were physical, mental, psychological, and medical. At one stage during the psychological tests I was told to write whatever I was imagining at the time, whatever came to mind as I looked at a blank picture frame. There were socioeconomic discussions. I was put in command of five people and given a task, like clearing a minefield. I was pretty good at all that. I completed the obstacle course nearly twice in the time allotted. Finally, we were interviewed by a commandant. I didn't find the interview difficult. I know I did well.
During the testing process I shared a room with P.Q. Mehdi, who later became an air marshal and our air chief. I remember we saw a movie called Savera, which means "Dawn." I was selected and we reported to the PMA.
The PMA is a historic place. It has verdant lawns and beautiful red- shingled colonial buildings in the lap of the Himalayas in a place called Kakul, near the town of Abbotabad, named after a British commissioner called Abbot. Imagine our excitement—a batch of fresh-faced young cadets in their new civilian clothes and immaculate haircuts—as our truck rolled in. The senior cadets were waiting for us like predators. No w imagine our shock when our smiles were met with deafening commands—"Crawl under the truck; now climb over it." Again and again came the orders, over and under the truck, over and under. "So this is the army," I thought to myself when I was on one of my crawling "expeditions" under the truck. "I will go along. They can't break me." When our clothes were completely soiled, we were made to do somersaults in the mud, down a slope, and then back up. If our mothers had seen us they would have been horrified.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The senior cadets let us have dinner; then they crowded us into an anteroom and made all seventy or eighty of us squeeze into the fireplace, one on top of another. We should have made the Guinness Book of World Records. Next we were taken for haircuts, army-style. They simply sheared us like sheep. We looked extremely odd. They made us do all sorts of indescribably silly things, like balancing a metallic tub of ice- cold water on our heads in the dead of winter, which in Kakul is very cold. If the tub falls, not only do you get drenched and freeze, you are given another equally terrible punishment. I had been told to expect hazing—or "ragging" as we call it in Pakistan—and was prepared for it, but it was a terrible experience nevertheless.
That first night I fell onto my bed and was out like a light, overcome by conflicting emotions—from excitement to incredulity to exhaustion. I dreamed of my parents' comfortable home in Karachi, St. Patrick's, FC College, and the Bengali girl.
No t many boys break down under ragging, and I took it in stride. It lasts for only the first ten days. I learned to outsmart the 'raggers.' I would do whatever they said—like front rolls—slowly, so as to exert myself as little as possible; or I would simply hide in the bathroom until the ragging was over. I knew that they were not allowed to touch us. I knew too that when I became a senior I would be ragging the new cadets myself When my turn finally came, I didn't rag much, and I was never cruel. I ragged with a purpose: to instill discipline and respect for authority in soldiers-to-be. Soldiers become a breed apart, a breed that willingly dies for its country without question.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

It was in the PMA that I actually started studying seriously. Fortunately, I learned that if I applied myself, I could excel. We were taught all kinds of subjects—science, mathematics, geography, military tactics, map reading, and of course, weapons training and drill. We were also taught how to command men and get the best out of them. We learned how to absorb psychological pressure and develop physical endurance. Above all, we learned about making decisions in a crunch, and no ordinary crunch: the kind that could mean the difference between life and death—yours and others'. If the men under you don't trust your decisions, they will not have the confidence to go into battle under your command. A military academy is a great place to learn how to be a man who can deal with a crisis, provided it is a good military academy. The PMA is the best in the world.
I did well in the PMA and was one of the top cadets in my course, one of the ten sword carriers. If not for my nonchalant attitude and my tendency to react badly to irrational authority, I would have done even better. Frankly, I was quite an ill-disciplined young man—quarrelsome and irresponsible. I was one of four candidates short-listed to go to Sandhurst, England, to complete my training, but another cadet, Ali Kuli Khan Khattak, was selected. He retired as a lieutenant general and chief of general staff when I became army chief, but I suspect that his retirement, which was optional, had more to do with disappointment at not becoming chief himself, which is perfectly understandable.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I was sometimes careless. Once during an outdoor exercise my platoon commander asked me to look at the other cadets and tell him what was missing from my uniform. I looked, but could not figure out what they had that I lacked. He asked me to touch my "damn head." It was bare, without a helmet. I was marched in the next day, for punishment. "Quick march, right turn, right turn, halt, salute," screamed the drill sergeant. The platoon commander was so impressed by my drill that without imposing any punishment he ordered the sergeant, "Good drill; march him off"

In fact, my physical bearing and drill were so good that I passed my "saluting test" on the first try with a special commendation from the adjutant. "Which cadet college do you come from?" he asked. When I told him I was from Forman Christian College and not from a cadet college, he was quite surprised. Later, during a parade rehearsal, he singled me out for a drill demonstration to the whole battalion of senior cadets. This got me into immense trouble with my seniors for "having the audacity to show them proper drill." It became the cause of many punishments at their hands whenever they saw me.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

On another occasion, however, I was nearly thrown out of the PMA. In our final term, just before we were to graduate, there was a drill competition of the first-term cadets in which the senior cadets, as spectators, were expected to wear black socks. Some of the seniors wore the wrong color. Th e battalion commander called me and ordered me to note down all their names and serial numbers—"and put your name at the top," he thundered. Ou r punishment was to run nine miles. When we came to a loop in the road some of us cleverly decided to take a shortcut and save about 200 yards (180 meters). Unknown to us, we were being closely watched through binoculars. About fifteen of us were caught. Inquiries started, and the whole thing became quite serious. Academy officials were determined that we should be thrown out for taking the shortcut—even though six of us who had done so were sword carriers who were to lead the graduation parade! Luckily, good sense prevailed and we were spared expulsion. Instead, our course grade was lowered. I was the battalion junior under-officer, and my position in the class would have been very high on merit, but as punishment we were pushed down six positions. So even though I ranked fourth in my course, I was placed tenth. Other junior under-officers got moved up six positions and thus graduated above us.
The experience at PMA was akin to an overhaul—being taken apart and put back together differently. Gaining acceptance into the school was like being chosen as the right clay. The PMA wet us—the clay— and placed us on the potter's wheel, ready for fashioning by the potter's hand. Once fashioned, we were all set to be baked and hardened in the kiln. I was now ready for the army, guided by the maker's hand.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

CHAPTER 7

INTO THE FIRE


In graduation from the academy, I was a second lieutenant. Without giving it much thought, I opted for the Thirty-sixth Light Antiaircraft Regiment, because its training, firing, and courses were all in Karachi. Why my fixation on Karachi? The reason was not my family—it was that my Bengali girlfriend was there. I suppose the army can change many things, but it cannot change primeval instinct. No matter where I was stationed, I reckoned, I would still have to go to Karachi twice a year for a course or for practice in firing.

My plans came to naught when that year it was decided that after graduation no one could go directly into antiaircraft without first going into artillery. So after six months I was posted to the Sixteenth Self- Propelled Artillery Regiment. Worse, my romance came to an abrupt end when the girl's family returned to East Pakistan.

I never did go into air defense. I stayed in artillery. From then on my entire career would be dedicated to the army and the defense of my country.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

I was still more of an officer than a gentleman. It didn't take long for me to get into trouble. In mid-1965, with clouds of war with India gather ing, my unit was moved into the Changa Manga forest near Lahore, a train ride of about twenty-four hours from Karachi. The rest of the young officers belonged mostly to the Punjab, and it took them only a few hours to get home to see their families. I applied for six days' leave to go to Karachi, and with a Sunday at both ends it would be effectively an eight-day leave. My commanding officer would have none of it—it was too long, he said. I thought he was being irrational and insensitive. I defied his decision, bought a train ticket, boarded the Karachi Express, and went home for the eight days. One of the officers slightly senior to me, Javed Ashraf Qazi, who retired as a lieutenant general and later became my minister for railways and then for education, phoned me and told me to return immediately. Otherwise, I would be in a lot of trouble on disciplinary grounds for being absent without leave. I refused, and took the full eight days off that I had "granted" myself On my return, my commanding officer went ballistic and initiated court- martial proceedings against me.

What saved me was the war of 1965, when India attacked Pakistan on all fronts and strafed a passenger train, killing many civilians. The Indian attack came on September 6. The war lasted seventeen days and ended in a cease-fire sponsored by the UN Security Council, but Pakistan gave India a fright and a bloody nose to go with it. There was no strate gic gain on either side. Still, Pakistan certainly achieved a tactical victory in the sense that we conquered more territory, inflicted more casualties, took more prisoners, and almost blew the Indian Air Force out of the air. My performance in the war earned me recognition and an award for gallantry. The commanding officer had little choice but to change his opinion about the "fiery young officer all out of control." In fact, it is precisely because I was a fiery young officer that I did well in the war.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

My artillery regiment was a part of the only elite armored division of the Pakistan Army equipped with American-made Patton tanks. We were launched into an offensive in the Kasur-Khem Karan sector on September 7, 1965. We established a bridgehead across the Roohi Nullah (a water drain) and quickly seized enemy territory up to fifteen miles deep, capturing the sizable town of Khem Karan. My artillery battery was deployed just ahead of the town. During a lull in the firing, I took a quick tour of the deserted streets of Khem Karan, and felt very proud. Only dogs were barking: there was no sign of human life. I wrote my first letter during the war to my mother, proudly saying that I was writing from India.

After three days of battle my division was ordered to move to the critical Lahore sector, which was under enemy threat. We stabilized our position there after two days of intense fighting. This was the only time in my entire military career that I have seen a gun barrel go red-hot from firing.

Having stabilized the Lahore front, we were ordered to move again to the Sialkot front. This was the front where the famous tank battles of Chawinda were fought. At the end of the war this sector was to become a graveyard of Indian tanks.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

My next confrontation with death came on the night of September 16, 1965. I was detailed as an artillery observer attached to an infantry company that had been ordered to attack and capture a village called Jas- soran, situated on a mound. The company commander was my best friend, Lieutenant Bilal. We were to attack at midnight. After prepara tory movement in the dark, we went into a "forming-up place" 800 yards (about 730 meters) from our objective, where the company lined up in a formation for the final assault. Bilal and I impulsively embraced each other. This could be our last embrace, we thought.
I brought the whole weight of our division's artillery fire on the village. Under cover of this fire we advanced, and finally charged the village crying Allah o' Akbar ("God is the greatest"). Th e artillery fire was very accurate and effective, keeping the enemy's head down. We braved the enemy's counterfire and forced them to beat a hasty retreat. We had accomplished our task. I felt great.
Another significant action took place on the night of September 22. Our guns were positioned in a graveyard. An enemy shell hit one of our self-propelled artillery guns and set its rear compartment on fire. The flames leaped up toward the sky in the darkness of the night. The ready-to-fire shells on the gun were in danger of catching fire and bursting, setting off a chain reaction with all the other guns. It was a very dangerous situation. "Hell!" I thought. "My gun battery could be blown to pieces, taking all of us along." I had to act immediately; there was no time to lose.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

While everybody took cover, a lesson that I had learned on the streets of Nazimabad came into play. I stood my ground, dashed to the blazing gun, and climbed into it. One brave soldier followed me. We saw three men of the crew lying in a pool of blood. Instinctively, I ignored them, in order to save the shells first. We took off our shirts and wound them around our hands for protection from the hot shells. One by one we took the shells off the gun and threw them to safety on the ground, hoping that they would not burst on impact. God saved us from that disaster. In the meantime, seeing me facing all this danger, all my men who had run for cover returned. Together we first put the fire out and then, sorrowfully, pulled out the three crewmen. I noticed that one of them was still alive. I took his head in my arms, but while I was trying to put a field bandage on his wound, he died. I will never forget it. Such are the brutalities of war; they leave a permanent imprint on the mind. I received an award for gallantry for saving lives and equipment. The brave soldier who helped me was also decorated for gallantry. I can never forget that night.

These two actions changed the commanding officer's opinion about me. I should have been decorated with two awards for gallantry, but instead I received one award and the dismissal of the court-martial proceedings. The war ended on September 23, 1965, and I was promoted to the rank of captain soon after.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

In 1966 I opted for and was assigned to the Special Services Group (SSG), our elite commando outfit, the world's best. Commando training demands tremendous physical and mental stamina, so it was exactly the right kind of environment for me. Commandos have to undergo survival training in jungles, mountains, and deserts, and learn to make it on their own. Eating delicacies like snakes, frogs' legs, and the local lizards (which are like iguanas) is not infrequent. I learned that one can eat anything except plants with white sap. Ever since then I have not been finicky about food—I can eat anything, though I do appreciate good food. You learn to really appreciate food and water when you are hungry or thirsty for a long time. The n you thank God for anything that He provides.

The training was physically exacting. There was very tough physical exercise for an hour every day, starting with a warm-up run of two miles (about three kilometers). We ran four miles (nearly 6.5 kilometers) with a weapon in forty minutes once a week; twelve miles (nine• teen kilometers) with a weapon in two hours; and thirty-six miles (58 kilometers) with a thirty-pound pack and weapon in ten hours. In addition, there were several tactical exercises involving hundreds of miles of route marches. Then there was watermanship in lakes and fast- flowing canals, as well as parachute training in which one had to qualify in six jumps. I was considered very good at these tests. I ended the course among the top three, getting the highest grade. Th e course gave me confidence in my physical and mental abilities. It taught me that enduring extreme hardship has more to do with mental resilience than physical stamina.