NYT : For Musharraf, Reduced Power as the President

For Musharraf, Reduced Power as the President

By CARLOTTA GALL and JANE PERLEZ | November 29, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 28 — A day after resigning as army chief, Pervez Musharraf will be sworn in as a civilian president on Thursday, leaving him with vastly reduced powers and Washington with a far more complex Pakistan to deal with in its fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Bowing reluctantly to pressure at home and abroad, Mr. Musharraf, 64, relinquished his military role in a somber ceremony on Wednesday, ending eight years of military rule. He turned over control of the army to Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, 55, a former head of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence.

The move sets up the potential of competing power centers in Pakistan, with an army chief separate from the president and the recent return from exile of the country’s two main opposition leaders. That is likely to complicate Bush administration antiterrorism policy here, something officials in Washington were hoping to avoid, and one reason they supported Mr. Musharraf for so long.

Senior army commanders grumbled increasingly in recent months that Mr. Musharraf was so engrossed in his own political survival that he had become distracted from battling the country’s spreading insurgency, Western military officials said.

Though finally stepping down as army chief, he is likely to retain much of his old power as a civilian president, fortified by his emergency decree on Nov. 3, and loyalists he chose at the top of the military, according to Pakistani officials and analysts.

But in fairly short order, Mr. Musharraf, who plunged the nation into political turmoil with his emergency decree and has been a sometimes frustrating partner in Washington’s fight against terrorism, will become a diminished figure, they said, a civilian president in a country where traditionally the power lies with an elected prime minister, or the military chiefs who have overthrown them. Mr. Musharraf came to power in such a coup.

Though General Kayani is considered loyal to the president, the real levers of power will pass to him, and he is believed to favor removing the army from the center of politics, they said. “Kayani is loyal to Musharraf, but also to Pakistan,” one Western military official said.

And as much as Washington has supported Mr. Musharraf, having a chief of the army on the job full time is a change likely to be welcomed. Bush administration officials have already praised General Kayani as someone they can work with.

General Kayani, an infantry commander and a graduate of the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, which he attended in 1987 and 1988, has been described by Western diplomats and military officials as well liked and by far Pakistan’s most capable commander.

He has already played a prominent role in cooperating with the United States. He was promoted to full general and made vice chief of Army Staff in October. He immediately visited units serving on the front lines in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and said that sorting out the difficulties plaguing western Pakistan was a priority, a Western military official said.

Even with his new oath of office, Mr. Musharraf will confront considerable political challenges. Before giving up his army post, he transferred the power to lift the de facto martial law to the presidency in a decree last week, and so any decision to lift it remains firmly in his hands.

He continues under intense pressure to rescind the decree he used to suspend the Constitution and appoint a new Supreme Court. The decree has been criticized by opponents and Western diplomats as a blatant move to have his recent election as president confirmed.

Mr. Musharraf is also under pressure to free the senior lawyers and judges who declared his emergency decree illegal and remain under house arrest. Once freed, they are likely to resume their campaign against him.

Not least, with parliamentary elections set for Jan. 8, he will also have to deal with two political opponents who are freshly back from exile, the former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the man he overthrew in a coup in 1999.

Both politicians have called for Mr. Musharraf’s resignation and for changes in the Constitution to curb the president’s powers over Parliament. As leaders of Pakistan’s largest political parties, either could head the next government as prime minister, perpetuating their power struggles with Mr. Musharraf as president.

While the military under General Kayani is likely to support Mr. Musharraf as president, it is unlikely to intervene to save him in further political tests of will, said a former general and political analyst, Talat Masood.

One indication of the mood is a letter that 20 former generals, air marshals and admirals, including Mr. Masood, sent this week to President Musharraf calling on him to resign as head of state as well as chief of the army.

They called on him to lift the emergency and restore the Constitution, withdraw curbs on the news media and release political prisoners. Imposing the emergency as chief of army staff was bringing the armed forces into disrepute, they said.

“The actions he is taking are really detrimental to the state,” Mr. Masood said. They had encouraged other countries to interfere in Pakistan’s affairs, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United States, in a way they never had before, and caused Pakistan to lose international respect, he said. He also criticized Mr. Musharraf for suggesting that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would not be safe if he were not in power, which he said was simply untrue.

One of the hardest things for Mr. Musharraf now may be to stop giving the commands.

“He’s the one who wants to sit in the driving seat,” said Pervaiz Elahi, who served as chief minister of the Punjab under General Musharraf. “As commander in chief and president, I still see him as controlling the army for five years,” he said.

He added that he did not think General Kayani would seek to change anything. “Kayani is a person who just goes by the book,” he said.

Though no longer in control of the army, Mr. Musharraf will retain some levers of influence within the military and the intelligence services, like his personal relationship with Gen. Nadeem Taj, the head of the Inter-Intelligence Services, officials said.

Yet other officials said that even with the extra powers given to the president in recent years, such as chairing the National Security Council, real power resides with the army chief. Unlike the American system, a civilian president in Pakistan is titular head of the armed forces.

“By the law of inertia he will continue to have some hold of the army,” said I. A. Rehman, director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. But he predicted that during the coming months Mr. Musharraf’s influence would diminish. “He will still have ears in the army, but he will not be able to dictate to them,” Mr. Rehman said.

Much depends on who forms a government after parliamentary elections, because military appointments, among other things, technically reside with the prime minister, said Najam Sethi, editor of The Daily Times.

In a recent interview, Mr. Musharraf indicated that he hoped his supporters in the previous governing coalition would be returned with a majority again, but some of those members complain that his own mistakes during the past nine months have damaged their chances at the polls.

A series of high-handed actions turned Mr. Musharraf from a popular domestic figure and a trophy of sorts for Washington — he signed up to the fight against terrorism immediately after 9/11 — to an embattled leader at home and an increasing embarrassment for the Bush administration.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” President Bush said he appreciated that Mr. Musharraf had “kept his word” to step down as military chief.

“I also hope that he enhances Pakistani democracy, and taking off his uniform is a strong first step,” he said. “And having elections that are out from underneath the emergency law would be a clear signal that he has put Pakistan back on the road.”

Mr. Musharraf’s friends and critics alike point to his decision to dismiss the chief justice of the former Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, in early March as his biggest blunder, one that inexorably led to the imposition of emergency rule on Nov. 3.

“He lost his head and tried to fire the chief justice,” said Humayun Gauhar, a friend and the ghostwriter of Mr. Musharraf’s memoir, “In the Line of Fire.”

Mr. Musharraf was prompted by his fear that the increasingly independent court under Justice Chaudhry would eventually rule against him in his effort to be re-elected as president while he remained as army chief, Mr. Gauhar said.

Because of his military mind-set, Mr. Musharraf failed to calculate, Mr. Gauhar said, that the chief justice would mount a popular movement of lawyers against Mr. Musharraf.

“Asking the chief justice to retire was a command,” Mr. Gauhar said. “I don’t think the refusal was ever in his scheme. A civilian would always keep that possibility in mind.”

The firing of the chief justice brought out a latent public dissatisfaction with military rule. Mr. Musharraf’s refusal to give up his military post became the focus of the opposition and obscured many of his earlier achievements, his supporters said.

When he seized power in 1999 and ousted Mr. Sharif, the former prime minister who returned to Pakistan last weekend, Mr. Musharraf was seen as a welcome newcomer who had the ability to clean up the pervasive corruption in Pakistan’s politics. He described himself as a modernizer. He encouraged the opening of independent television stations, and freed up the statist economy.

Born in India in 1943, he came to Pakistan as a refugee at partition in 1947. That status made him an outsider to the feudal society that had produced most of the nation’s rulers.

In the beginning of his rule, he moved swiftly against corruption, said Farook Adam Khan, who served then as prosecutor general for the National Accountability Bureau. But after a year, the general switched gears, Mr. Khan said, stopped pursuing corruption cases and acquiesced to the religious parties in his coalition over various efforts at reforms.

Mr. Musharraf’s supporters say that removing his uniform may come just in time for the president to regain some of his standing.

“As a president without uniform he will help us in the coming elections,” said Mr. Elahi, the former minister who is touted as a likely prime minister if his pro-Musharraf party retains majority.

Carlotta Gall reported from Lahore. Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Islamabad. Graham Bowley contributed reporting from New York.

Thaindian News : In Pakistan, Negroponte courted Kiyani

In Pakistan, Negroponte courted Kiyani

November 21, 2007

Islamabad, Nov.21 (ANI): When Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte visited Pakistan last weekend; he held three meetings with Pakistans Vice Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Ashfaq Kiyani, and ony one with President General Pervez Musharraf.

According to the Washington Post, Negroponte and Kiyani also shared a Saturday night dinner, and this probably affirms that he is potentially being seen as a vital ally to the Bush Administration.

“Use your influence. You can help save Pakistan,” Negroponte is believed to have told Kiyani during the visit, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Musharraf has repeatedly said he will step down from his army post. It remains unclear when he will do so.

If Kiyani is named successor, he will command Pakistan’s 600,000 troops and lead the country’s most important institution.

“To understand the power of Pakistan, you have to understand that it’s the military that matters. And they are kingmakers here,” said Shireen M. Mazari of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

“I don’t know if that implies that Kiyani can indeed influence Musharraf politically right now. But he may well do in the future, if history is an indicator,” Mazari added.

With the political uncertainty continuing in Pakistan, analysts say Kiyani is key to Musharraf’s own future.

Few say Kiyani would attempt a coup because, for now at least, top military leaders would not support it. And Kiyani, 55, has his own reasons not to press Musharraf to lift emergency rule or resign as president.

“He won’t risk his own job, since time is on his side,” said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general who is now a political analyst.

Masood adds that “the U.S. emphasis is correct.”

“They have to cultivate him and make sure they get along well with each other, because if, down the road, the army feels their reputation is sinking along with Musharraf, well, that is when you have seen a change of power in Pakistan throughout history.”

Public support for Musharraf, who was installed in the presidency after a 1999 coup, has never been as low as it is now, following his decision November 3 to declare emergency rule, fire several Supreme Court justices and crack down on the news media.

On Tuesday, the Musharraf regime released more than 3,000 political prisoners who had been held under emergency rule, many of them lawyers.

But the Interior Ministry said 2,000 people remain detained. And in Lahore, a group of lawyers was briefly released and then arrested again.

Pakistan’s army was once the most popular institution in the country. Bumper stickers proclaimed, “Good Men Serve in the Pakistani Army.” Wars with India over Kashmir were a unifying factor against a common enemy.

But Musharraf and the troops he commands have lost support among many Pakistanis.

Throughout the recent turmoil, Kiyani has remained out of the political spotlight. Before becoming the armed forces’ No. 2, the general was head of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s spy agency, where he worked closely with senior CIA and Pentagon officials. He was given that post after investigating two assassination attempts against Musharraf in 2003; the appointment was seen as a reward.

Kiyani has working-class roots, having been raised in farming communities in the Punjab region, sometimes called the country’s “martial belt” because many teenage boys from the province enter the military, lacking other economic opportunities. He attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Colleagues say Kiyani is more knowledgeable about al-Qaeda than any other army general. He is said to have good relations with some of the country’s civilian political leaders, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, for whom he served as deputy military secretary.

Kiyani is known to show few emotions publicly and takes time to think over decisions, which analysts say could be a calming trait in the current political turbulence.

Nasim Zehra, a defense and security analyst in Islamabad, said that, “As a Pakistani, I have full confidence in Kiyani. He’s Pakistan’s professional soldier and not interested in power and politics. But the truth is, I would have said that about Musharraf in 1999.” (ANI)

WaPo : In Pakistan, U.S. Envoy Courts No. 2 General

In Pakistan, U.S. Envoy Courts No. 2 General

Deputy Could Succeed Musharraf as Army Chief

By Emily Wax | Washington Post Foreign Service | November 21, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Nov. 20 -- When Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte visited Pakistan last weekend, he met once with President Pervez Musharraf, for two hours. But before he left town, he held three meetings with a lesser-known figure: Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the deputy army chief.

The two shared a Saturday night dinner.

The attention paid to Kiyani has affirmed reports here that he will soon be anointed Musharraf's successor as head of the army -- and, as such, will be a vital ally for the Bush administration during a time of crisis.

"Use your influence. You can help save Pakistan," Negroponte told Kiyani during the visit, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Musharraf has repeatedly said he will step down from his army post. It remains unclear when he will do so. If Kiyani is named successor, he will command Pakistan's 600,000 troops and lead the country's most important institution.

Power in Pakistan flows from the uniform, as a popular saying here goes. Half of the country's rulers have been sons of the military.

"To understand the power of Pakistan, you have to understand that it's the military that matters. And they are kingmakers here," said Shireen M. Mazari of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. "I don't know if that implies that Kiyani can indeed influence Musharraf politically right now. But he may well do in the future, if history is an indicator."

Public support for Musharraf, who was installed in the presidency after a 1999 coup, has never been as low as it is now, following his decision Nov. 3 to declare emergency rule, fire several Supreme Court justices and crack down on the news media.

On Tuesday, Musharraf's government released more than 3,000 political prisoners who had been held under emergency rule, many of them lawyers. But the Interior Ministry said 2,000 people remain detained. And in Lahore, a group of lawyers was briefly released and then arrested again.

Meanwhile, police detained 150 journalists in the southern city of Karachi, where violence broke out after police sprayed tear gas, used batons to beat protesters and chased them through the streets. Several journalists were shown on television injured.

Musharraf flew to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday amid reports that he might be meeting with Nawaz Sharif -- the prime minister ousted in the '99 coup.

With the political uncertainty continuing in Pakistan, analysts say Kiyani is key to Musharraf's own future.

Few say Kiyani would attempt a coup because, for now at least, top military leaders would not support it. And Kiyani, 55, has his own reasons not to press Musharraf to lift emergency rule or resign as president.

"He won't risk his own job, since time is on his side," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general who is now a political analyst.

Masood added that "the U.S. emphasis is correct."

"They have to cultivate him and make sure they get along well with each other," he said. "Because if, down the road, the army feels their reputation is sinking along with Musharraf, well, that is when you have seen a change of power in Pakistan throughout history."

Pakistan's army was once the most popular institution in the country. Bumper stickers proclaimed, "Good Men Serve in the Pakistani Army." Wars with India over Kashmir were a unifying factor against a common enemy.

But Musharraf and the troops he commands have lost support among many Pakistanis. The president has been criticized for undermining national interests in favor of the Bush administration's in counterterrorism operations. Public approval of the military sank after soldiers launched a deadly raid at a pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad, with troops facing off against religious students.

Throughout the recent turmoil, Kiyani has remained out of the political spotlight.

Before becoming the armed forces' No. 2, the general was head of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's spy agency, where he worked closely with senior CIA and Pentagon officials. He was given that post after investigating two assassination attempts against Musharraf in 2003; the appointment was seen as a reward.

Kiyani has working-class roots, having been raised in farming communities in the Punjab region, sometimes called the country's "martial belt" because many teenage boys from the province enter the military, lacking other economic opportunities. He attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Colleagues say Kiyani is more knowledgeable about al-Qaeda than any other army general. He is said to have good relations with some of the country's civilian political leaders, including former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, for whom he served as deputy military secretary.

Kiyani is known to show few emotions publicly and takes time to think over decisions, which analysts say could be a calming trait in the current political turbulence.

"The real question now is: Can Kiyani foster a better public image of the army and gain support within the army for what they are doing against their own brothers in fighting militancy in the tribal areas and in the Swat Valley?" said Nasim Zehra, a defense and security analyst in Islamabad. "As a Pakistani, I have full confidence in Kiyani. He's Pakistan's professional soldier and not interested in power and politics. But the truth is, I would have said that about Musharraf in 1999."

Guardian : His bridges burned, Musharraf has nowhere to turn

His bridges burned, Musharraf has nowhere to turn

Pakistan's Musharraf era could be in its death throes with the general facing a united domestic opposition and increasing scepticism from the US

Mark Tran | Guardian Unlimited | November 13, 2007

With pressure mounting on him at home and from abroad, the chances that General Pervez Musharraf will survive politically are looking increasingly bleak.

The prospects of a power-sharing deal with the opposition leader Benazir Bhutto that would have enabled Musharraf to cling on to power as president are diminishing rapidly. The more pressure Musharraf is applying on Bhutto, the more she is pushing back.

Today, as she was put under house arrest for the second time in five days, the opposition leader moved closer to a clean break with Musharraf.

For the first time, Bhutto called on him to resign as president altogether, adding for good measure that she could never serve in a government under him. Anyone associated with the general, she said, "gets contaminated".

For a government rather sensitive to criticism, as the Daily Telegraph found to its cost, such words will hardly be appreciated. More ominously for Musharraf, Bhutto now says she will work with the rest of the opposition, including the exiled former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to restore democracy.

Should Bhutto decide to throw her lot in with the opposition, Musharraf will be in real trouble. Until now he could count on a divided opposition of those who were willing to accept him as president, and those who wanted him to quit the scene altogether.

Many in the opposition were critical of Bhutto's willingness to strike a Faustian pact with Musharraf whereby he would give up his post as head of the army to remain president and she would breeze into the job of prime minister. Even members of Bhutto's Pakistan's People's party (PPP) disapproved of her negotiations with Musharraf.

Musharraf's decision to declare emergency rule looks like an increasingly costly miscalculation. Few accept the rationale that it was aimed at extremists, and most believe that the real target was a supreme court increasingly willing to stand up to the government. Moreover, the result has been to unite the opposition against the president.

Meanwhile, the Commonwealth has given Musharraf an ultimatum to restore the constitution or face expulsion from the organisation. This threat from a largely powerless organisation is hardly likely to make Musharraf quake in his boots, but the move serves to underline his isolation.

The two constituencies that really count for Musharraf are the army and the US. He may brush aside huffing and puffing from the Commonwealth and Westminster, not so statements from Washington.

The Bush administration has been hedging its bets. While calling for a restoration of democracy, the White House has praised Musharraf as a valuable ally against Islamist militancy in his own country and across the border in Afghanistan.

Of course there have been complaints. The US criticised Musharraf's decision to call a truce with militants in the border region, which allowed them to regroup, and there has been griping that Pakistan was not doing enough to block Taliban forces from infiltrating Afghanistan from Pakistani territory.

Despite such caveats, the US regards Musharraf, who decided after 9/11 that Pakistan must side with the Bush administration, as the better devil. But as his stock plummets, the US will at some point see him as a liability rather than an asset.

There are already whispers in the US that it would be better off with General Ashfaq Kiani, who was picked last month by Musharraf as deputy chief of staff of the army. Kiani is widely viewed as Musharraf's likely successor as head of the armed forces.

In an interesting twist, the Los Angeles Times reported last month that Kiani had been a key intermediary in talks with Bhutto as the former opposition leader and Musharraf tried to work out their power-sharing deal. Previously in charge of investigating assassination attempts against the president, Kiani is considered a moderate and is well-regarded by US officials.

Kiani is said to favour a more "professional" armed forces that remain in barracks and keeps out of politics - although this would go against Pakistan's history of military meddling in politics. Even if Kiani is flavour of the month in Washington, the difficulty for the US and Pakistan will be to manage the transition to a post-Musharraf era.

Daily Pioneer : Aide as successor

Aide as successor

Wilson John | October 24, 2007

Gen AP Kiyani, designated to succeed Gen Pervez Musharraf, boasts of an enviable record of political connections, has been an ISI chief and is backed by the US Administration. Of course, he had his fair share of faux pas in every field

Lt Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, a Punjabi officer from the Baloch Regiment, till recently the ISI chief, pro-US and a supposed expert on India, is set to take over from Gen Pervez Musharraf as Pakistan Army's 14th Chief of Army Staff. He is the first DG, ISI, and son of a Non-Commissioned Officer to become the Chief.

It is obvious that Gen Kiyani's appointment as the Chief of Army Staff has Washington's approval. Gen Kiyani's appointment could be seen as part of the US's grand-strategy to foist democracy on Pakistan with Gen Musharraf as the President and Benazir Bhutto as the Prime Minister. Gen Kiyani has done three courses in the US, including one at the US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth. He is known to the top brass in Pentagon. He has also been deeply involved in the discussions on the US-Pakistan strategic dialogue, particularly on the war on terrorism. Further, when the US launched its global war on terrorism following 9/11, Gen Kiyani was the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) (January 2001 - September 2003).

Though Gen Musharraf made it clear that he was in favour of allying with the US in the war on terrorism, some of his Generals were not so keen. But Gen Kiyani kept quiet. All along, as subsequent events show, Gen Kiyani remained his master's voice. Although the Army claims Gen Kiyani is an independent choice as Gen Musharraf's successor, facts belie this claim. He has been carrying out Gen Musharraf's directives and policies in Balochistan, the tribal areas, the alliance with the US and the peace process with India.

While Gen Kiyani should share some of the blame for the brutal crackdown on Baloch rebels during 2005-2006, it was Gen Musharraf who took the entire blame for not opting for negotiations with the rebels.

Gen Kiyani also played an important role in putting down the Shia rebellion in Gilgit-Baltistan in May 2004 when he was the Rawalpindi Corps Commander overseeing the activities of Force Command Northern Areas.

Gen Kiyani is familiar with the area as he was the General Officer Commanding at Murree in October 1999 when Gen Musharraf took over the reigns from Nawaz Sharif in Islamabad. GOC Murree reports to Corps Commander, Rawalpindi, and is responsible for military operations in PoK. GOC Murree acts more like a 'Viceroy' of PoK and is known to take an active interest in managing the political affairs of this federally administered area.

This is a significant clue to Kiyani's political experience, quite contrary to the smokescreen being created that he was apolitical. Nothing could be farther from the truth. He was the Deputy Military to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and has been in touch with her even during her self-exile in London. Ms Bhutto had picked Lt Col Kiyani from four candidates in May 1990. He subsequently served under Prime Ministers Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi and Nawaz Sharif.

It was this exposure to politics that made Gen Musharraf pick Gen Kiyani to open negotiations with Ms Bhutto. Gen Kiyani's familiarity with other Punjab-based political parties - Pakistan Muslim League (Q) and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) - also can't be discounted.

It was during Gen Kiyani's tenure that local elections were organised in Pakistan (2005) which witnessed large scale reports of rigging and manipulation. The results shored up Gen Musharraf's hold over the country. Another important election held under Gen Kiyani was the July 2006 elections in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). The election results were apparently pre-determined in favour of the party supported by Gen Musharraf.

Gen Kiyani is a hard-liner with an ear to the ground on India. He was with President Musharraf during his visit to Agra in July 2002. As a Major General, he was the DGMO (January 2001 - September 2003) when India launched Operation Parakram, a mass mobilisation of troops along the border to launch an attack in revenge for the terrorist attack on Parliament House on December 13 2001 in New Delhi. The dexterity with which he handled the Pakistani troop movements to counter the Indian mobilisation on the borders brought him closer to Gen Musharraf.

In September 2003, Gen Kiyani was promoted as the Lieutenant General and appointed to head the most critical Command, the Rawalpindi Corps (X). As Commander X Corps, he made a breakthrough in penetrating the terrorist cells that had planned the assassination attempts on President Musharraf.

As DG ISI (October 2004 - October 2007), Gen Kiyani played an important role in unravelling the London terrorist plot in 2006. It was the ISI tip-off that led the British and the US police to foil the plot.

Gen Kiyani had taken over as the ISI chief from a Pashtun officer Ehsan ul Haq who was brought in by Gen Musharraf to purge the agency of radical elements in the aftermath of 9/11. Gen Kiyani's task was to complete the clean-up operation, and perhaps set up a more clandestine network with jihadi groups. It was during Gen Kiyani's time that Al Qaeda and the Taliban managed to strengthen their presence in Pakistan's tribal areas and the Frontier province, and even managed to influence radical elements in Islamabad.

The influence of radical elements was seen in Islamabad when students, both men and women, of Lal Masjid took to the streets, calling for imposition of the shari'ah in Pakistan. The fact that the students, aided by terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad, could amass weapons and explosives within the complex poses a serious question about Gen Kiyani's tenure as the spy chief.

Gen Kiyani's role in keeping the jihadi strategy in Jammu & Kashmir (and India) is worth a probe. After the Afghan jihad against Soviet occupation, the strategy to use terrorists as a political tool aimed at keeping India embroiled in a proxy war and achieving a strategic depth in Afghanistan. Gen Kiyani as the DGMO and later as the DG, ISI, promoted this strategy scripted by Musharraf when he was the DGMO.

Gen Kiyani joined the Baloch Regiment in August 1971, about three months before the 1971 war began. He took part in the conflict which ended with the creation of Bangladesh, an event which had a deep impact on young Pakistani officers of that time. He was a young officer during the era of Zia ul Haq who ensured that all young officers were infused with Islamic nationalism and anti-India sentiments.

Gen Kiyani also happens to come from the area in Pakistan which has traditionally been the recruiting ground for the Army and where anti-India sentiments have been the strongest till date.

As the ISI chief, Gen Kiyani is at least partly responsible for the release of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen chief Fazlur Rehman Khalil (December 2004) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami chief Qari Saifullah Akhtar (May 2007).

Many of the junior ISI officials, retired in the purge carried out by Ehsan ul Haq after September 11, 2001, have returned to the fold as contractual employees to aid the Taliban. These men operate from the ISI office in Chitral (Northern Areas), which supports terrorists launching attacks on the US, and Afghan forces in Kunar and Nuristan. Gen Kiyani as the head of ISI was aware of these developments and allowed such backdoor support to the Taliban as part of the overall Pakistan policy.

Gen Kiyani retires in December 2009.

Dawn : CJCSC, VCOAS call on President Musharraf

CJCSC, VCOAS call on President Musharraf

AFP | October 9, 2007

ISLAMABAD -- Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Tariq Majeed and Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani separately paid courtesy call on President General Musharraf here Tuesday.

The President congratulated them on assuming charge of their new responsibilities and expressed the hope that under their able leadership the operational and professional capabilities of the Armed Force of Pakistan will be further enhanced.