Ashfaq Parvez Kayani,, HI), is a retired four-star rank army general in the Pakistan Army who
briefly served as the Chief of Army Staff from 29 November 2007 to 29 November 2013.
He succeeded General Pervez Musharraf as the chief of army staff on 29 November 2007.
He also held the acting charge of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from
October to November 2013.
In addition, General Kayani formerly served as the Director-General of the Inter-Services
Intelligence, and director of the Directorate-General of Military Operations.
On 24 July 2010, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani extended Kayani's term as Chief of
the Army Staff by three years, making him the first four-star officer to receive a term
extension from any democratic government.
In 2011, Forbes named him the 34th most powerful person in the world.
In 2012, Forbes named him the 28th most powerful person in the world.
Early life Education
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was born in a Punjabi Gakhar Family of Gujjar in village Manghot
located in Gujar Khan District Punjab Province, on 20 April 1952.
The town of Manghot is situated on the Pothohar Plateau bounded on the east by the Jhelum
River, on the west by the Indus River.
Ashfaq's father was a Non-commissioned officer in the Pakistan Army.
His humble background as the son of an NCO has endeared him to the junior ranks of the
army.
After attending a local high school, Ashfaq successfully enrolled in the Military College
Jhelum, Sarai Alamgir and made a transfer to Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul where
he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1971 in his class of 45th PMA Long Course.
Career 1971 war experience
Ultimately, Kayani gained commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant in the 5th Battalion of the
famed Baloch Regiment on 29 August 1971.
He actively participated and joined up the military in time of 1971 war with India.
Academia and professorship After the war, Ashfaq continued to resume
his studies and became more involved with his studies after joining the Command and
Staff College in Quetta.
After his graduation, Kayani departed to United States on deputation and educated at the United
States Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth and the United States
Army Infantry School at the Fort Benning.
After graduating from the military institutions in the United States, Ashfaq returned to Pakistan
and attained his Master of Science in War studies from the National Defence University.
Kayani is a chain smoker as well as a keen golfer.
He is currently president of the Pakistan Golf Federation.
During his long military career, Ashfaq has been on the faculty of School of Infantry
and Tactics, also in Quetta.
Ashfaq briefly taught war courses at the Command and Staff College in Quetta and later moved
on to accepting the professorship of strategic studies and joined the teaching faculty at
the National Defence University in Islamabad.
Kayani is married and has two children, a son and a daughter.
He belongs to Kayani clan which claims ancestry from Persian Kayanian dynasty.
Staff and Command appointments As Lieutenant-Colonel, Kiyani commanded the
an Infantry Battalion and an Infantry Brigade, as Brigadier.
Later, he served in the government of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as her deputy
military secretary during her first stint as prime minister.
Upon his promotion to two-star rank, Major-General Kiyani served as the general officer commanding
of the 12th Infantry Division stationed in Murree, deployed all over the LoC region and
which comes under the X Corps.
In 2000, Kiyani was moved and appointed as the director of the Directorate–General
of Military Operations.
In 2001, it was during his tenure as DGMO that the intense military standoff between
Pakistan and India took place.
Reportedly, Kayani only slept a few hours a night during that period as he diligently
oversaw the unified armed forces mobilisation and preparedness on the border.
In September 2003, Kayani's promotion to three-star assignment was approved by the President Musharraf
and subsequently elevating him to three-star rank, Lieutenant-General.
The same year, he was appointed as the field operational commander of the X Corps in Rawalpindi.
The promotion indicated Musharraf's significant trust in Kayani, since chief of army staff
cannot build a military coup without the help of the X Corps commander.
Kayani led the X Corps until October 2004, when he was transferred to the ISI as its
director-general.
During Kayani's tenure at the X Corps, he led the successful investigation of the two
back-to-back suicide attacks against Musharraf in December 2003.
It is believed that Kayani won the trust of Musharraf after the investigation, and a prelude
to Kayani's appointment as the sensitive position of ISI chief.
He was awarded Hilal-e-Imtiaz, the civilian medal, for his achievement.
Intelligence service Directorship of Inter-Services Intelligence
In October 2004, Lieutenant-General Ashfaq Kayani was appointed as the director general
of Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, in place of General Ehsan-ul-Haq, who was
promoted as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.
General Kayani directed the ISI operations and her operatives during a bleak period,
with widely spread insurgencies in North-West Pakistan and Balochistan, disclosing of the
nuclear proliferation case, and waves of suicide attacks throughout Pakistan emanating from
the northwestern tribal belt.
In his final days at the ISI, he also led the talks with Benazir Bhutto for a possible
power sharing deal with Musharraf.
In October 2007, after three years, he was replaced at the ISI by Lt Gen Nadeem Taj.
Kayani was also present at the March 2007 meeting that took place between Musharraf
and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, when the former military ruler informed the
top judge that he was suspended.
Accounts of that meeting narrated that Kayani was the only one among Musharraf's aides who
did not speak a word.
Chief of Army Staff In October 2007, Kayani's promotion papers
for the appointment to the four-star rank was approved by the President Musharraf, and
appointed him as the Vice Chief of Army Staff.
At the time of promotion, Kayani superseded one officer, Lieutenant-General Khalid Kidwai
who was on an extension for one year.
On 28 November 2007, Kiyani succeeded Musharraf as chief of army staff after Musharraf's retirement.
The ceremony was held at the sports stadium near General Headquarters, Rawalpindi.
General Kayani is the first four-star officer in the history of Pakistan who held the position
of director of ISI and then went on to become the Chief of Army Staff.
The last time a Director-General of the ISI was to be made army chief in 1999, the army
staged a bloodless coup to reinstate the proposed outgoing Chief of Army Staff, General Pervez
Musharraf.
Withdrawal of military from civilian government In January 2008 General Kayani passed a directive
which ordered military officers not to maintain contacts with politicians.
It was further made public on 13 February 2008 that General Kayani ordered the withdrawal
of military officers from all of Pakistan's government civil departments.
It was an action that reversed the policies of his predecessor, President Musharraf.
It was welcomed by President Musharraf's critics, who have long demanded that the military distance
itself from politics.
The Pakistani media reported that the army officers would be withdrawn from 23 wide-ranging
civil departments, including the National Highway Authority, National Accountability
Bureau, Ministry of Education, and Water and Power Development Authority.
2008 general election On 7 March 2008 General Kayani confirmed that
Pakistan's armed forces will stay out of politics and support the new government.
He told a gathering of military commanders in the garrison city of Rawalpindi that "the
army fully stands behind the democratic process and is committed to playing its constitutional
role."
The comments made were after the results of the Pakistani general election, 2008 where
the Pakistan Peoples Party won the election and began forming a coalition government who
were opposed to President Pervez Musharraf.
Perceptions of Kayani as COAS When he became COAS, several top-level US
officials visited General Kayani in succession to make up their own minds about him.
Most, including the then CIA chief Michael Hayden, National Intelligence Director Mike
McConnell and former CENTCOM-commander Admiral William Fallon came away confident that Kayani
"knows what he's doing."
Kayani's first move as army chief was to visit the front lines in the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas.
Spending the Muslim holiday of Eid not with his family, but rather with his soldiers prompted
American military officials to praise him as a "soldier's soldier."
Recent events
About the Afghan war, Kayani is reported to have said, "the Pakistani people believe that
the real aim of U.S. [war] strategy is to denuclearize Pakistan."
In January 2011, and after, there was criticism of General Kayani's handling of the Raymond
Davis saga.
Davis, a CIA contractor, was hastily tried and acquitted of murder charges in exchange
for blood money paid to relatives of the victims, after which he was sent out of Pakistan within
a matter of hours.
Knowing the dynamics of the Pakistani state and the nature of this particular case, it
was impossible for Davis to be released and deported from Pakistan without the knowledge
and co-operation of Pakistan's Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence.
The day after Davis' release, over 40 people were killed in the Datta Khel airstrike in
North Waziristan in the FATA, in a drone strike by a US Predator aircraft.
The target appeared to be a compound operated by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban leader.
The dead included local tribal leaders.
The strike, intended to further the local war effort, instead added to the unpopularity
of drone strikes and added to the anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.
Kayani conducted a rare press conference in which he condemned the drone strike and labelled
it "intolerable".
In 2011, after delivering a long lecture at the National Defence University, one staff
officer reportedly got up and challenged his policy of co-operation with the United States.
The officer asked, "If they don't trust us, how can we trust them?" according to one professor
who was briefed on the session.
General Kayani essentially responded, "We can't."
Kayani's comments about the Datta Khel strike came to be put in the broader context of public
and private communications by Pakistani officials with Washington, including an April 2011,
visit by the head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, to CIA Director Leon Panetta
at CIA headquarters.
"[S]ome officials in both countries [were] saying intelligence ties [we]re at their lowest
point since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks spurred the alliance," according to one report.
The report went on to say the overall communications included private demands that the CIA suspend
drone strikes and also reduce the number of US intelligence and Special Operations personnel
in the country.
After the ISI-CIA meeting, CIA spokesman George Little said the intelligence relationship
"remains on solid footing."
Retirement On 6 October 2013, General Kayani announced
that he will be retiring on the his due date of retirement in November, ending speculation
that he might get an other extension or would be appointed as Chairman Joint Chief of staff
Committee.
On November 27, 2013 Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif appointed Lt.Gen Raheel Sharif
as next Chief of Army staff and Lt. Gen. Rashid Mehmood as CJCSC.
Awards and decorations See also
Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 Tariq Majid
References
External links Official profile at ISPR website
Official profile at Pakistan Army website Profile at BBC News
Profile at The News