In Pakistan's short history, the political arena has been a dangerous place due to its complex domestic contradictions, full of open strife and infighting, and there has never been a shortage of bloody assassination scenes.
Even with his outstanding achievements during his administration and even being hailed as Pakistan's most legendary president, Musharraf still suffered many open guns and dark arrows, and even after leaving office, he still could not escape the fate of forced exile.
Signal jammers make a big difference
On December 14, 2003, a piece of news quietly made headlines in national newspapers. Pakistani President Al-Musharraf's motorcade suddenly exploded after passing a bridge in Rawalpindi.
The blast did not injure Musharraf, but more than a dozen policemen who served as escorts were killed. Looking at the damaged bridge, Musharraf simply prayed and moved on.
For the rest of his life, Musharraf was so calm because he had seen such a scene of life and death before. And he also knew that he would encounter such assassinations in the future.
Pakistani intelligence said the bridge had long been fitted with remote-controlled bombs. The reason the bombs did not explode as Musharraf passed by was because some device on Musharraf's convoy worked.
According to Pakistan's security services, this is a special device that can interfere with the signal, which can disable the remote control signal within 200 meters.
Bomb attacks were nothing new to him
This isn't the first time a signal jammer has made a difference. In April 2002, Al-Qaida leader Sharib Ahmed planted a remote-controlled bomb on a road through Which Musharraf passed.
As Musharraf's convoy passed, the signal jammer came into play again, allowing Musharraf to safely pass through the street. After the discovery of the roadside bomb, Pakistani intelligence quickly arrested Ahmed based on clues.
Although Pakistani intelligence has no valid evidence, Musharraf strongly condemned the bomb-planting group through journalists.
Musharraf said: "Obviously, this is undoubtedly a terrorist attack on the world, and I am the target of the attackers. These attackers are likely to come from extremist religious forces and members of certain organizations in the country."
Despite the condemnation of the attackers, the experience of being assassinated was not uncommon in Musharraf's decades-long life.
Like Musharraf, successive Pakistani leaders have been assassinated, and compared to other Pakistani politicians who were assassinated, Musharraf, who is now forced into exile, is undoubtedly lucky.
Why Musharraf was frequently targeted for assassinations, and why he was so hated, all started from Musharraf's life experience.
A child from India
Musharraf was born in India in the 1940s to a devout Muslim family. Shortly after his birth, due to the British-led "partition of India and Pakistan" policy, the war broke out between the newborn India and Pakistan, and the Musharraf family was forced to move to Pakistan.
Growing up in Musharraf, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir. In order to serve the country, Musharraf set the ideal of serving the country from the military when he was a teenager.
Originally from India, Musharraf is a minority in Pakistan, but through his own efforts, Musharraf has gained majority recognition in the military.
After becoming a general, Musharraf did not forget his original intentions, and his style remained rigorous. Moreover, Musharraf never deliberately flattered his superiors, let alone co-opted colleagues, and this style of solitude was greatly appreciated by former Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif.
At Sharif's behest, Musharraf became a general in the Army in the 1990s. In 1998 Musharraf was promoted to Chief of Army Staff.
Calmly coping with political opponents Unexpectedly became the leader of Pakistan
As the old saying goes, "There is no cold in the heights," and after sitting on the top of the top of staff, Musharraf encountered his first danger. The person who put Musharraf in danger this time was Sharif, who had the grace of promotion.
It turned out that Sharif's motivation for promoting Musharraf was actually to consolidate his power.
Because in Pakistani politics, the army often stages coups, so how to stabilize the army has caused headaches for all Pakistani leaders.
Because Musharraf did not have his own small group in the army, Sharif felt that it would be easier to promote Musharraf to control the army.
However, Musharraf found that many of Sharif's actions were to satisfy his own selfish desires and pursue many policies that harmed the interests of the country, which made Musharraf very dissatisfied, and the two had a dispute.
Seeing that Musharraf could not be used for his own purposes, Sharif was quiet on the surface, but secretly he was ready to get rid of Musharraf.
In October 1999, during Musharraf's foreign visit, Sharif suddenly attacked and announced that he had been relieved of all his duties and that he would be arrested and imprisoned in accordance with the law.
Musharraf learned of the incident on the plane back to China, which had flown back home, but Sharif did not allow Musharraf's plane to land.
If there is no airport landing, the plane will crash. For safety, many people at that time advised Musharraf to take refuge in other countries first.
Faced with danger, Musharraf showed composure, and after analyzing the situation, he rejected the proposal to go into exile.
He acted quickly, through the radio on the plane, and commanded the army to arrest Sharif and other high-ranking officials, and Sharif's plot was foiled.
When Musharraf's plane finally landed safely, the pilots were sweating profusely and felt like they had walked through a ghost gate. Because the fuel left for the plane was only enough for seven minutes.
Conscientiously serving the country has won the hearts and minds of the people
After Sharif was arrested, Musharraf, who was not mentally prepared, officially became the leader of the Pakistani government.
Musharraf's rise to power through military action caused resentment among Western forces at home. The group believed that Musharraf had not been elected to power and therefore called for a general election.
To their surprise, Musharraf quickly agreed to a general election.
What these pro-Western forces did not expect was that after the election results came out, the elector was still Musharraf, and he also received a super high turnout of 98%.
In order to repay the support of the people, Musharraf carried out a number of domestic and economic reforms in the country, effectively rectifying the government atmosphere and improving the efficiency of government affairs.
During Musharraf's administration, Pakistan's economy grew well, and its GDP more than doubled.
They have been facing opposition and challenges
In terms of diplomacy, although Musharraf has always cooperated with the United States in counter-terrorism, in terms of China policy, Musharraf has always adhered to a friendly policy toward China. Musharraf's pro-China tendencies have aroused the dissatisfaction of the United States and domestic pro-Western forces.
Even so, domestic pro-Western forces have been creating public opinion to criticize the Musharraf government's policies, but in the context of the good domestic situation, these criticisms have not become mainstream.
However, just when Pakistan's economic construction was booming, the famous "9/11" incident broke out. Although this incident occurred in the United States, it had a huge impact on Pakistan.
After the 9/11 incident, the United States invaded Afghanistan on the grounds of "counter-terrorism" and demanded that the Pakistani government vigorously assist in eliminating terrorists on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Religious forces were intertwined in Pakistan, with religious leaders secretly supporting ostensibly ostensibly osten bin Laden.
The Taliban, who have fled to the Border with Afghanistan, also hate Musharraf's policy of encirclement and suppression to the bone.
Insisting on counterterrorism has led to frequent assassinations
With strong pressure from the United States on the one hand and powerful religious forces at home, Musharraf was caught in a dilemma.
However, for the sake of Pakistan's national interests, Musharraf decided to cooperate with the United States to eliminate the extremist religious forces in the country and create a peaceful development environment for Pakistan. Musharraf's move, while gaining popular support, angered some extremist groups in the country.
Because of Musharraf's support for U.S. counterterrorism initiatives, he became the number one target of some extremist groups, which were the terrorists who planned the roadside bombs in 2002 and the bridge bombs in December 2003.
In addition to bombs, terrorists also launch direct attacks. After Ahmed's arrest, Musharraf was in danger.
In October 2002, Musharraf inspected the port city of Karachi. After the inspection, on the outskirts of Karachi, Musharraf's convoy was stopped by a large truck.
Just as the convoy guards were preparing to eliminate the big trucks, they suddenly noticed a lot of gunfire around them, and it turned out that there were many terrorists around the convoy.
There were dozens of terrorists, driving Toyota pickups and firing wildly at Musharraf's cars with automatic rifles, rockets and other weapons. To protect Musharraf, the guards also shot back.
The two sides are said to have engaged in a fierce exchange of fire for more than ten minutes before the arrival of Pakistani security forces.
The attack did no harm to Musharraf because Pakistan's security services equipped his car with the world's most advanced bulletproof equipment, which can withstand the blows of almost any light weapon.
Following the Karachi ambush and bridge bomb incident, the Musharraf government conducted a major search inside the country, arresting many extremists. Yet Pakistan's deep-seated religious forces make it difficult to sweep away the extremists.
For safety, Musharraf decided to move his residence to the Rawalpindi Barracks on the outskirts of Islamabad. Because there are troops stationed here, the ability to defend against surprise attacks is stronger.
After the first two failures, the frenzied extremists were not satisfied and launched another attack on Musharraf 11 days after the bridge bomb incident.
On 25 December 2003, terrorists first dispatched human bombs and launched an attack on the barracks where Musharraf lived.
After the human bomb exploded, dozens of terrorists attempted to storm the barracks, which was heavily defended. Although the terrorists caused more than a dozen casualties among the soldiers, they were unable to break through the barracks' defenses and were finally completely annihilated by the Pakistani military.
In the aftermath of this attack, Musharraf was not intimidated by the frenzied terrorists, but more resolutely pursued his policy of suppressing terrorist forces and extremist groups. After several years of vigorous rectification, Pakistan's domestic security has improved greatly from before.
Under joint pressure from domestic and foreign opposition, Musharraf chose to make concessions
Under Musharraf's leadership, Pakistan can be said to be thriving. But Musharraf's efforts have still failed to bring real stability to Pakistan.
In a politically complex Pakistan, Musharraf has been under attack by domestic opposition in addition to dealing with endless assassinations by extremist forces.
These opposition parties have not seen the real needs of Pakistan's national situation and the need for centralization, and have been vigorously attacking Musharraf, who is full of military and political power, under the slogan of so-called "democracy".
The United States and other Western countries, because they cannot tolerate Musharraf's independence and foreign policy of friendship with China, have been secretly supporting Pakistan's opposition, and even created public opinion, setting off a wave of criticism of Musharraf.
Even in the 2008 election, Musharraf was re-elected with high support again, and he could not escape criticism. In the face of criticism at home and abroad, Musharraf again made concessions, agreeing to hand over military power and agreeing to the return of former Prime Minister Sharif.
Musharraf naively thought that he would be able to continue to exercise the presidency after he handed over his military power. But after leaving the army, he found that he had long since fallen into the trap of political enemies.
After Musharraf lost his military power, the opposition did not relent, and they pressed forward step by step, using impeachment as a threat to demand That Musharraf's step down. And his former subordinates have also joined the camp against Musharraf.
In Pakistan's politics, the Sharif and Bhutto families take turns in controlling the post of prime minister. In order to deal with the popular Musharraf, the two major political families united to form a powerful ruling coalition.
Political opponents have never stopped his "political pursuit."
In 2007, the ruling coalition decided to start impeachment proceedings against Musharraf after gaining a parliamentary majority. Under joint pressure from political enemies at home and abroad, on August 18, 2008, Musharraf announced his resignation as president on television.
After resigning, due to the political enemies in power, in order to avoid domestic disturbances, Shortly after leaving the presidency, Musharraf went to settle in the United Arab Emirates.
Even though Musharraf made the most concessions and stayed away from Pakistan, his political opponents refused to let him go. In 2011, Musharraf was charged with the murder of former Prime Minister Bey Bhutto. In 2013, Musharraf was placed under house arrest on his return.
The pursuit of Musharraf by political enemies has not stopped. In 2018, at the behest of Sharif and others, Pakistan set up a special court to try Musharraf for "various crimes."
In 2019, the Special Court sentenced Musharraf to death for "treason." Although Musharraf was far away at this time, when he heard that he had "treasoned", Musharraf, who had worked hard for the country for half a lifetime, felt that he could not laugh and cry, and even some of his political enemies felt that this sentence was quite absurd.
At the behest of public opinion, pakistani courts removed Musharraf from "treason" in 2020, and upon hearing the news, Musharraf said: "This decision is really good and I am glad that this ruling is in line with the law and the Constitution." ”
Today, Musharraf is still living his life in the UAE. Although he was already plagued by illness, in his heart, if he could not finally fall back to the roots, it would be a lifelong regret.
Resources:
Musharraf evaded assassination in The Huaxi Newspaper Sichuan Online
Musharraf details his assassination: Someone wanted my life for money
Musharraf helped the United States encircle and suppress terrorists The 4th time evaded the assassination of Sina Xinhua net
Pakistani President Musharraf receives a preliminary investigation report into the Karachi bombings on China News Network