General Muhammad Aziz Khan ( ; 1 January 1947), best known as Aziz Khan, is a retired four-star rank army general in the Pakistan Army who served as the 11th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, appointed in October 2001 until his retirement in 2005.
Before surprisingly superseding several military officers for the appointment as the Chairman joint chiefs in 2001, Gen. Aziz was the leading general who commanded the Northern Command against the Indian Army in the 1999 Kargil War.
In 1999, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had tried to stop a commercial flight from landing with Army Chief Pervez Musharraf onboard so Sharif could appoint a new Army Chief. As a result, Aziz was one of the four army generals who helped to initiate the military turnover, after the plane landed, against the civilian government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Biography
Muhammad Aziz Khan was born in Pallandri, Sudhanoti, in British India now Azad Kashmir, Pakistan) on 1 January 1947 to a Sudhan Pashtun family. He first graduating from the High School Palandri, before joining the joined the Pakistan Army in 1964. He first completed his combat duty with the army during the second war with India in 1965, before being redirected to join the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA).
In 1966, Aziz passed out from the PMA with the class of 1st War Course, which is senior to 37th PMA but junior to 38th PMA Long Course, gaining commissioned as 2nd-Lt. in the 12th Battalion of the Punjab Regiment. He went to command an infantry platoon during the third war with India in 1971, and was later sent to attend the Command and Staff College where he qualified as a psc. He later went to attend the National Defence University where he graduated with MSc in War studies. In 1980s, Lt-Col. Aziz commanded the 12th Battalion before joining the Zia administration's staff.
In 1980s, Colonel Aziz was selected to be appointed as Military Secretary to President Zia-ul-Haq, assisting him when President Zia went on a state visit to the United States to meet with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. He was later posted as military attaché at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington D.C. for the United States Army to maintain military relations with the U.S. military.
In 1990, Brigadier Aziz was posted as the Chief of Staff of the X Corps which was under Lt. Gen. G.M. Malik before being stationed in Siachen to command the Northern Light Infantry (NLI). In 1991–94, Brig. Aziz eventually moved to command the 80th Brigade attached to the Northern Command stationed in the Azad Kashmir.
War and Command appointments in the military
Chief of General Staff and Kargil war with India
In 1994, Brig. Aziz was promoted as two-star rank when he posted as the GOC of the Force Command North based in Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan. Maj-Gen. Aziz served as the GOC of the Northern Command until 1996 when he was promoted to the three-star rank, leaving the command of Maj-Gen. Javed Hassan.
In 1996, Lt. Gen. Aziz was posted to the ISI, directing the ISI's analysis department, which had been responsible for providing analysis and gathering intelligence in India and Afghanistan, until 1998. Lt. Gen. Aziz was mainly responsible in keeping intelligence on the Talibans in Afghanistan, and had reputation in the country for his ultraconservative views.
In October 1998, Lt. Gen. Aziz was moved to the Army GHQ where he was appointed as the Chief of General Staff, a second-in-command post under the Chief of Army Staff. Himself a Kashmiri, Gen. Aziz was fully committed to the Kashmir cause, he began implementing the plan for covert infiltration in Indian occupied Kashmir, with the approval of the Chief of Army Staff.
Later investigative reports compiled by Pakistani historians and journalists, it was revealed that Lt. Gen. Aziz was the leading general who was masterminding the area contingency operations of the Norther Command led by its GOC Maj-Gen. Javed Hassan. Despite being well aware of the consequences, the writers critically questioned Lt. Gen. Aziz's grand strategy that brought the two nations at the brink of war, with international opinion widely accepting the Indian narrative.