Former Pakistan President and chief of Army staff Pervez Musharraf died today at the American Hospital in UAE’s Dubai after prolonged illness at the age of 79.

Musharraf’s organs were malfunctioning because of an ailment called amyloidosis. This disease affects connective tissues and organs, inhibiting normal functioning. 

There’s no official communication if his body will be brought back to Pakistan, though his family has been trying to bring him back home since last year. 

Facing charges back home for the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, Musharraf has been living in Dubai for the last eight years. He had earlier expressed his desire to spend the “rest of his life” in his home country, and wanted to return to Pakistan as soon as possible.

The former President was the tenth president of Pakistan after a successful bloodless military coup in 1999. He served as the 10th Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee of Pakistan (CJCSC) from 1998 to 2001 and the 7th top general from 1998 to 2007.

He was known as the architect of the Kargil war, the man who ordered his soldiers to enter India to cut off Leh from Srinagar.

In the war that followed in the summer of 1999, Pakistani soldiers, whose presence he denied, were decimated in the high mountains of Kargil. It was a catastrophic military failure for Musharraf, who had pushed forward with the plan, keeping Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif mostly in the dark.

With the support of his Army, and in a bloodless coup, Musharraf appointed himself President of Pakistan in 1999.

Born in New Delhi in 1943,Musharraf was four years old when his parents joined the mass exodus by Muslims to the newly-created Pakistan. His father served in the foreign ministry, while his mother was a teacher and the family subscribed to a moderate, tolerant brand of Islam.

He joined the army at the age of 18, and went on to lead an elite commando unit before rising to become its chief. He took power by ousting the then prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, who had tried to sack him for green lighting an operation to invade Kashmir, bringing Pakistan and India to the brink of war.

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