Former top Pakistan Army officer ‘killed in Afghanistan’

ISLAMABAD : A member of former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf’s inner circle who served as the country’s Director General Military Operations and headed its anti-corruption watchdog has been killed in Afghanistan, local media reports said.

Lt Gen (retd) Shahid Aziz wanted to compensate for what he had done in favour of the US troops, and therefore, he was in Afghanistan serving in some capacity where he was killed, the reports said. It is believed he was working with militant groups.

While the reports cited certain family members, Aziz’s son reportedly described the accounts as ‘fake news’.

The former chairman of the National Accountability Bureau had written a book in which he spoke of the involvement of Pakistani Army’s regular troops in the Kargil war against India.

While launching his book in 2013, Aziz said he had been guilty of self-deception during his career but a fear of Judgement Day had made him speak up. “I want the young generation to learn from my mistakes,” Aziz said.

He said he thought it necessary to write his book to expose the Kargil crisis because he could not bear to witness the falling standards of the Pakistani Army.

Aziz was head of the analysis wing of Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence, during the Kargil war and DGMO during the 1999 military coup that saw Musharraf ousting the government of Nawaz Sharif.

Aziz, who retired in 2005 , had been criticised for not raising his voice before. He quit as NAB chief after being asked to close all cases against former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband Asif Ali Zardari amid their back-channel negotiations with Musharraf.

MUSHARRAF HAD CLAIMED THAT AZIZ HAD LOST HIS MIND, GROWN A BEARD AND GONE TO SYRIA, AND ACCORDING TO SOME PEOPLE, WAS KILLED THERE.