General Akhtar Abdur Rahman

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Author: Sameer Shah

General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, NI(M), SBt, (Urdu: اختر عبد الرحمن) was the Director of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency, during the 1980s. Abdur Rahman was the mastermind, with the support of United States, behind the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union. He was a close friend of CIA chief William Casey.

Abdur Rahman was born to a Pashtun Rohilla family in Princely State of Rampur, India. He was educated at Bishop Cotton School, Shimla and later at La Martiniere, Lucknow. His family moved to Pakistan during the Partition of India.

Akhtar Abdur Rahman was commissioned in the then Indian Army on 16 February, 1947.[1] He was later made GOC of the 12th Infantry Division. It was from this position that the general was promoted to head the Pakistani premier intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence.[2]

On promotion to the rank of General, he was appointed Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, succeeding Pakistani General Rahimuddin Khan in 1979. Akhtar's own successor as Director General ISI was Lieutenant General Hamid Gul.

He died in a mysterious plane crash that also killed then President Zia-ul-Haq and many other top generals heading the Soviet War in Afghanistan, along with an American ambassador to Pakistan.

Akhtar's son, Humayun Akhtar Khan, was the Minister of Commerce in the government headed by Pervez Musharraf till February, 2008. Akhtar is projected as one of the most successful generals and as hero by the military establishment in Pakistan.