By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Former president of Pakistan, General (R) General Pervez Musharraf passed away in Dubai on Sunday morning aged 79, local media reported citing diplomatic sources.
Reportedly, Musharraf was under treatment for months at the American Hospital in Dubai. He remained the president of Pakistan from 2001 to 2008.
Life and legacy
Musharraf was born on August 11, 1943, in Delhi – then British India. He got commission in Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, on April 19, 1964, in the artillery regiment. He was also a member of the Pakistan Military’s elite unit, the Special Services Group, and fought in the 1965 and 1971 wars with India. He is also widely considered the key architect of the 1999’s Kargil War.
He rose to the rank of General and was appointed Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff on October 7, 1998, by then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He then became the tenth president of the South Asian nation after a military coup in 1999.
Following the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the subsequent US invasion of Afghanistan later that year, Musharraf got into a close alliance with the US government to assist Washington in its War on Terror.
