Parvez Musharraf's Press Conference With Local Media New York in 2000 Part (3) PTN-USA

Syed Pervez Musharraf was born on 11 August 1943 is a Pakistani former four-star general and politician who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful 1999 Pakistani coup d'état. He held the presidency from 2001 until 2008, when he tendered his resignation. Born in Delhi during the British Raj, Musharraf was raised in Karachi and Istanbul. He studied mathematics at Forman Christian College in Lahore and was also educated at the Royal College of Defence Studies in the United Kingdom. Musharraf entered the Pakistan Military Academy in 1961 and was commissioned to the Pakistan Army in 1964, playing an active role in the Afghan civil war. Musharraf saw action during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 as a second lieutenant. By the 1980s, he was commanding an artillery brigade. In the 1990s, Musharraf was promoted to major general and assigned an infantry division, and later commanded the Special Services Group. Soon after, he also served as deputy military secretary and director general of military operations. Musharraf rose to national prominence when he was promoted to four-star general by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1998, making Musharraf the head of the armed forces. He led the Kargil war in 1999. After months of contentious relations between Sharif and Musharraf, Sharif unsuccessfully attempted to remove Musharraf as the army's leader. In retaliation, the army staged a coup in 1999, which allowed Musharraf to take over Pakistan as president in 2001. Musharraf initially remained the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Chief of the Army Staff, relinquishing the former position upon confirmation of his presidency. However, he remained the Army Chief until retiring in 2007. Musharraf reinstated the constitution in 2002, though it was heavily amended within the Legal Framework Order and oversaw directed policies against terrorism, becoming a key player in the American-led war on terror. On 18 August 2008, Musharraf announced his resignation. On 23 November 2008 he left for London. Musharraf was declared an "absconder" in the Bhutto assassination case by virtue of moving to Dubai. In 2019, Musharraf was sentenced to death in absentia for the treason charges, although, the death sentence was later annulled by the Lahore High Court. In 2000 Kamran Atif, an alleged member of Harkat-ul Mujahideen al-Alami, tried to assassinate Musharraf. Atif was sentenced to death in 2006 by an Anti Terrorism Court. On 14 December 2003, Musharraf survived an assassination attempt when a powerful bomb went off minutes after his highly guarded convoy crossed a bridge in Rawalpindi; It was the third such attempt during his four-year rule. On 25 December 2003, two suicide bombers tried to assassinate Musharraf, but their car bombs failed to kill him; 16 others died instead. On 6 July 2007, there was another attempted assassination, when an unknown group fired a submachine gun at Musharraf's plane as it took off from a runway in Rawalpindi. His first battlefield experience was with an artillery regiment during the intense fighting for the Khemkaran sector in the Second Kashmir War. He also participated in the Lahore and Sialkot war zones during the conflict. During the war, Musharraf developed a reputation for sticking to his post under shellfire. He received the Imtiazi Sanad medal for gallantry. Shortly after the end of the War of 1965, he joined the elite Special Service Group (SSG). He served in the SSG from 1966 to 1972. He was promoted to army captain and to major during this period. During the 1971 war with India, he was a company commander of an SSG commando battalion. The Pakistan Army originally conceived the Kargil plan after the Siachen conflic. Musharraf was a leading strategist behind the Kargil Conflict. From March to May 1999, he ordered the secret infiltration of Kashmiri forces in the Kargil district. After India discovered the infiltration, a fierce Indian offensive nearly led to a full-scale war. However, Sharif withdrew support of the insurgents in the border conflict in July because of heightened international pressure. Sharif's decision antagonized the Pakistan Army and rumors of a possible coup began emerging soon afterward. Sharif and Musharraf dispute on who was responsible for the Kargil conflict and Pakistan's withdrawal. Nawaz Sharif has maintained that the Operation was conducted without his knowledge. However, details of the briefing he got from the military before and after the Kargil operation have become public. Before the operation, between January and March, Sharif was briefed about the operation in three separate meetings. On 17 May at the ISI headquarters, during the end of the June DCC meeting, a tense Sharif turned to the army chief and said "you should have told me earlier", Musharraf pulled out his notebook and repeated the dates and contents of around seven briefings he had given him since beginning of January. PTN-USA