Chief of Army Staff
General Ziauddin Khawaja, also known as Ziauddin Butt, is a four-star general of the Pakistan Army and a career operations and infantry formations commander, head of intelligence and engineering officer. He was one of the most prominent and successful commanders in Pakistan Army and was described as a “genius general” by all three of the former army chiefs (General Beg, General Kakar and General Karamat).
Ziauddin has served as Director-General of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency ISI. He was nominated for the post of Pakistan Army chief on Oct 12, 1999 by then-Prime minister Nawaz Sharif after the dismissal of General Pervez Musharraf, who had begun a coup against the government. The coup went ahead regardless of this appointment as Ziauddin told his supporters not to resist the move as it would cause dangerous in-fighting amongst the army. Both Sharif and Ziauddin were arrested by the coup-makers and taken to different locations. Ziauddin was kept in solitary confinement for two years, and was subject to three army investigations which aimed to find some element of wrong-doing on his part. Musharraf decided to use a ‘scouts penalty’ – a discretionary punishment not requiring a crime, to dismiss General Ziauddin from service.
Army career
Ziauddin was commissioned in Pakistan Army in the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers, a technical combat arm in October 1964 in the 30th PMA Long Course.General Ziauddin received his B.Eng. in civil engineering in 1968.
Kamran Khan of The News wrote disparagingly about Ziauddin in a news column called “the news/national intelligence unit (NIU)”. General Rashid Queraishi was quoted as saying “General Ziauddin was one of the best generals in our army’s history, so now we have to change the history”.[citation needed] Subsequently, Kamran Khan and others claimed[citation needed] that all of General Ziauddin’s accomplishments were because of Nawaz Sharif.
He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General Ziauddin on 25 February 1996 and the commander of 30 Corps in Gujranwala, General Jehangir Karamat, who was then COAs. [Citation needed] After that he served as the commander of a weapon, was also published Ziauddin commanding general (AG) of the army, a key staff officer (PSO) the location where he was spending the time to strengthen Musharraf to army chief in October 1998. Moved Ziauddin year, when it was replaced by Lieutenant General Ali Khan Khattak Kuli Musharraf and Nawaz Khalid year, ranked second in the list of seniority in the army, and second only to Musharraf himself. He was appointed at a later time that the presidency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, after replacing Lt. Gen. Nasim Rana who have been deployed and Master ammunition. (MGO). Was also one of the top generals ever to occupy the post of head of the intelligence service (ISI DG) and is credited with major renovation and development of the agency and its operations….
