-------------------------------------------------------------------------
we heard about Amir Faisal Alvi (commissioned in 26 Cavalry) as cadets for his assault course record time as a cadet in 1982.Later I met him when he was a brigade major at Multan in 1987.I was not impressed frankly from what I saw of him.My friend Captain Mazhar Qayyum who saw him as an enemy commander in a training exercise in which 12 Independent Squadron stationed at Nowshera was acting as the enemy did not find him impressive as a tank squadron commander.But thats not important in the pakistan army where promotions depend on so many things,most important being push and pull,ethnicity,sect,which village you belong to etc.He had all the right connections to become a general which he did.Described as happy go lucky by Brigadier Simon a course junior to him Alvi had the reputation of being a middle ranking commando professional.He had a healthy interest in many pleasures of life as I saw him in Multan in 1987-88.
Having said that it goes to Alvis credit that he sacrificed his British nationality to serve in the Pakistan Army.Ironically this man who was used by the Pakistani state in so many sensitive operations had no security.A sad reflection on a state involved in a struggle till death , a struggle in which this Pakistani state is at the risk of destructio itself ! The message that the assasins wanted to convey and have conveyed is that no officer is safe.A message which will go a long way in demoralising many officers involved in similar duties.
His father was a businessman in East Africa and he belonged to a family with many accomplished literary and business personalities.His wife I think was a Qizilbash.He served under my distant relative " The Great Ustaad" in 2 Commando Battalion in Quetta I think.
Flashy , extrovert,outgoing,talkative Alvi was not bad company but frankly we did not serve together for long and we were of different schools of thought.He was a mainstream officer and we were the rebels.
His forced retirement by Musharraf to whom he was quite close was a surprise.His role in Musharrafs coup of october 1999 was crucial.His role in the operations against the Islamist extremist made him a 100 % target.This appears to be a 100 % Taliban/sectarian killing.Its a trailer of the bigger film to be staged in next one to two years.The list of similar dead could include bigger names.Pakistan is becoming more and more dangerous every day.Pakistani conspiracy theorists are saying that this is a US inspired killing ! Its absolute bull shit.This man did many services for the USA's war on terror !
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Top Pakistan ex-commando killed
By Syed Shoaib Hasan
BBC News, Islamabad
Police say that the attack was well planned and executed
A former chief of Pakistan's elite military commandos has been killed in a targeted attack near the capital Islamabad, police officials say.
They say that retired General Amir Faisal Alvi and his driver were shot dead on the main highway leading into the city.
Senior military and government officials have been the focus of targeted attacks by militants.
Their deaths have been blamed on their support for the US-led "war on terror".
Bullets 'sprayed'
More than a dozen senior officials have been killed since 2001 in such attacks, while others, including former President Pervez Musharraf and present Prime Minster Yusuf Raza Gillani, have narrowly escaped assassination attempts.
"General Alvi's car was stopped on the highway near Bahria Town by three armed men," Inspector Mohammad Arshad, who is in charge of the investigation, told the BBC.
"The men then sprayed the car in which the general was travelling with bullets. Both he and his driver were killed instantaneously."
Witnesses told police that the killers travelled by motorbike and jeep and fled the scene immediately after carrying out the crime.
"It seems like a well-planned and executed attack," Inspector Arshad said.
Police officials say they are also looking into the possibility that the attack was related to business or personal enmity.
But the top suspects, according to them, are militants from jihadi organisations.
General Alvi retired from the army in 2006 as head of Pakistan's elite commando unit, the Special Services Group (SSG).
The unit has been closely involved in operations against al-Qaeda and the Taleban across Pakistan since 2001.
The unit's main headquarters near the town of Tarbela-Ghazi was the target of a suicide bombing in September 2007, leaving several officers and soldiers dead.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY GENERAL ALVI WAS KILLED ?
Who killed Gen Alvi?
By Amir Mir
LAHORE: The authorities investigating the murder of Maj-Gen (retd) Amir Faisal Alvi, former General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the elite Special Services Group (SSG), by two unidentified gunmen in Rawalpindi do not rule out the possibility of involvement of some pro-Taliban militants in the assassination.
Once considered close to former president Pervez Musharraf, Maj-Gen Faisal Alvi was the first General Officer Commanding of the elite Special Services Group, and had also commanded the elite group as a brigadier. The first Pakistani major-general to have captained the Armed Forces Skydiving Team (AFST), Alvi was forcibly retired from the Army on disciplinary grounds ‘for conduct unbecoming’ by Gen Musharraf in August 2005.
The authorities suspect the involvement of a sectarian organisation linked to Taliban and the al-Qaeda in the murder, as Maj-Gen Alvi had been involved in several major military operations conducted by the SSG commandos in the restive Waziristan region.
The authorities believe the murder has symbolic significance as Alvi used to be a high-profile officer of the Special Services Group — an independent commando division of the Pakistan Army, which had carried out the high-profile Lal Masjid operation in Islamabad against the fanatic Ghazi brothers and their followers.
Although retired in 2005, Alvi was still considered a soft target by the militants wanting to get even with the SSG commandos, whether serving or retired. The SSG is the same elite unit of the Army to which Musharraf belonged, and which was specially trained by the US Special Forces for carrying out covert operations and counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations in Pakistan, especially in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt.
Though Maj-Gen Faisal Alvi was not involved in the Lal Masjid operation, he had supervised “Operation Mountain Lion”, which was carried out by American and British troops in the Pak-Afghan tribal belt.
The operations on the Pakistani side of the border were carried out with the help of the Special Services Group commandos in a bid to track down fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. In one such military operation carried out in Angoor Adda area of Waziristan in October 2003, a special SSG unit led by Faisal Alvi had killed 12 suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda militants and arrested 14 others.
At a subsequent media briefing, Faisal Alvi had stated: “Our guys are trying to flush out the militants. We are having problems actually flushing them out, because they are putting on very strong resistance. Some of those arrested appeared to be from Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime. Most of the guys we have encountered so far are foreigners (hailing from) different nationalities. You see those guys sitting under the tree, those prisoners we have taken, they are all foreigners and we have four dead foreigners lying here. The dead and most of the prisoners appeared to be Arab nationals”.
“A large cache of arms and basic surveillance equipment was also seized from the rebel compounds,” Alvi, who was the commander of the operation, said while showing weapons to reporters and giving details.
“You see a machine gun, you see AK-47s, you see a rocket launcher, you see anti-tank mines, you see explosives, you see grenades. All have been recovered from one house. There is a great possibility that these people could have been involved in the attacks across the border on the coalition forces and have launched those attacks,” he had stated.
.jpg)
Posts
I have little sympathy for people like this if all they're capable of doing is capturing the Qila of Lal Masjid and killing their own people in Wana for the Americans, and then twirl their moustache. Never seen real action against the enemy who has as much firepower as he had.
ReplyDeleteWhat did Musharraf know about Conduct Unbecoming anyway? Instead, he should have promoted him to Lt. General for whatever reason. Both the same breed.
Good riddance, in my view.
But I agree with you there will be plenty more to come who'll meet the same fate.
my dear brother , the man had nothing to do with lal masjid....the very mysterious part of the story is that musharraf was apparently very close to him and the SSG commandos played a crucial role in 12 october coup ....commandos were brought in helicopters to islamabad for the operation.......later musharraf retired him abruptly and did not promote hom to the rank of lieutenant general........
ReplyDeletePavo,
ReplyDeleteI know he was retired a year before the Lal Masjid op but it was his kith & kin you see in the pic below, raising victory signs after having blown to bits a bunch of schoolgirls with dandas and their handful of helpers with 14 kalashnikovs. You would think they were ghazis returning from raising the flag over Red Fort of Delhi.
Ghazis?
I suspect many of those in this truck would have been blown to bits as well in the Tarbela revenge bombing.
Sorry but you know I feel very strongly about this. This was the single act of beyghairati coupled with brutality and cowardice which pushed Pakistan over the brink and prompted formation of PTT.
the army my dear has been a mercenary force for a long time and this has finally brought it in conflict inisde pakistan.....for US dollars the afghan war was fought and now for US dollars the war against terroris is being fought.....pakistan was created because of ego and political ambition and leaders were using islam as a cheap tool to galvanise the stupid masses...the grand deception goes on....my fear is that this game of agent provocateurs and grand deception can go out of conrol ....all that is happening in afghanistan can become a grave threat for world peace....its complicated and those who matter...both i pakistan an USA dont understand it...thats the grave danger
ReplyDeleteAlvi is my generation. We joined the army post 1971 at the heels of surrender. We chose to be soldiers because there was always that temperate spirit of revenge and flirting with danger. This is what I wrote on my blog.
ReplyDeleteHe was a Kenyan born who chose Pakistan as his country in 1972. A course senior to me, he was well groomed and an excellent boxer. Passed out as Senior Under Officer and Joined a Tank Regiment.
In 1973, we did our adventure parachuting course together. We were instructors together in School of Infantry and Tactics and did our Staff course in Quetta in 1985 in the same batch.
We had frequent contacts in 1999-2000 when he commanded the SSG and I was in Military Operations. Then again when he was a Major General, we worked together on the Heliborne Rapid Reaction Force.
Alvi had a happy go easy approach to life, loved flirting with danger and walk on the brink. He fell out with some people exercising double standards and were also responsible for many other fiascos.
Initially, he was terminated without benefits but later some were restored. It was indeed a bad adieu to a person who sacrificed an international career to serve in the army.
But who cares and who remembers?
so this shows the callous nature of musharraf and the top brass.......javed hassan who rolled balls in kargil was not retired for failure ....or mahmud .....and musharraf did not resign after that grand debacle at kargil....ha ha ha
ReplyDeletealvis death indicates the way pakistans internal front is now shattered.....for some he is a victim and for many he is a villain.......this is an assessment.....i am not anyone of them.....alvi was part of the rotten system and he got all the privileges....he was the hard front end of many operations that the pakistani mercenary generals were waging to please the USA.....but even Alvis SSG was divided.....note that the main leaders of the anti musharraf life attempt on the bridge were NCOs from SSG.....its a strange state of affairs.....the pakistani state is as divided now as the afghan state was in 1978-92 .....all thanks to the USA sponsored and pakistani tinpot generals executed afghan war....the wheel of history turns and now its turning 360 degrees.....we can feel it.....its a dangerous faultline.....a faultline that can be fatal.......
ReplyDelete