Asghar Ali Mubarak’s very rear photo along with Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir including two Principal Staff Officers

Asghar Ali Mubarak’s very rear photo along with Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir including two Principal Staff Officers – Air Vice Marshal Abdul Razzaq, DCAS (Training&Evaluation) and Air Vice Marshal Saleem Nawaz, DCAS (Administration) – and the air crew.      Shaheed Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir  the then president Pakistan Squash Federation before departure for Kohat, Pakistan.    

On 20 February 2003, Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir boarded on a Fokker F-27 aircraft operated by the Air Force, alongside with his wife and 15 senior air force officers from Chaklala Air Force Base for a routine flight to Northern Air Command based in Kohat, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan to review the U.S. military’s war logistics. The plane lost contact from its military radars at the Northern Air Command and crashed after hitting the highest peak of the mountain at the Tolanj mountain range in Kohat due to an extreme fog and winter temperature. Among the casualties were other high-ranking officials of the Pakistan Air Force, including two Principal Staff Officers – Air Vice Marshal Abdul Razzaq, DCAS (Training&Evaluation) and Air Vice Marshal Saleem Nawaz, DCAS (Administration) – and the air crew.

Upon his accidental death, the Pakistan government gives him a state funeral, with many foreign dignitaries attending his funeral and was buried in Mominpura cemetery in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Since the plane crash in 2003, Air Chief Marshal Mir’s death has attracted significant amount of attention and has been subject of conspiracy theories in media and literature. Since the plane crash in 2003, Air Chief Marshal Mir’s death has attracted significant amount of attention and has been subject of conspiracy theories in media and literature. According to the Gerald Posner, an American journalist, Mir’s death in a plane crash was not an accident but an act of sabotage, which he claimed in his book: “Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 911.”, written in 2003.^:

Several American authors of counterterrorism studies have suspected him of having advanced intelligence knowledge on the planning of the terrorist attacks in the United States by al-Qaeda, during his time when Mir was serving in the ISI as its spymaster.

Subsequently, Posner and his American colleagues have claimed that Osama bin Laden and other Afghan Arabs had struck a deal with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) through Mir in 1996 to get protection, arms, and supplies for Al-Qaeda. The meeting was blessed by the Saudi royal family through Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud— the Saudi intelligence chief.

However, after the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, and a reversal of Pakistani and Saudi stances favoring the Afghan Taliban and their allies al-Qaeda, the three Saudi princes associated with the deals died within days, and seven months after that, Mir’s plane crashed in Kohat region of Pakistan. In spite of his closeness to President Musharraf, ACM Mir had strongly objected and opposed the Musharraf administration’s policy on War on Terror, that he suspected of intelligence blowback and terror organizations that might be finding the foreign support for their operations to spread sectarian violence in the country.

Prince Turki bin Faisal, on the other hand, was removed as intelligence chief and sent as Ambassador to United Kingdom during the same time.

Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali was an influential statesman and a four-star air force general who served as the Chief of Air Staff of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), appointed on 20 November 2000 until his accidental death in a plane crash on 20 February 2003.

A fighter pilot and a strategist, he briefly served at command level in the ISI before promoted as a four-star air officer to command the air force in 2000. In 2001-02, he also commanded and provided the strategy to deploy troops during the military standoff with India. In addition, Air Chief Marshal Mir later went onto facilitates the United States military’s war logistics for war operations in Afghanistan. His appointment was cut short when a former PAF Fokker F-27 in which he was a passenger crashed near Kohat, Pakistan.

His death has been subject of numerous conspiracy theories with many American authors charging him of having advanced-knowledge on terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

Mushaf Ali Mir was born in Lahore, Punjab in India on 5 March 1947.^: He hailed from the lower middle class family and was of the Kashmiri descent, that practiced the Shia’a principles of Islam.

His father, Farzand Ali Mir, was a calligrapher who died when Mushaf was still young. He attended Govt. Wattan Islamia High School in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Upon his matriculation from a local school in Lahore, Mir initially attended the Government College University but joined the Pakistan Air Force in 1966 which directed him to attend the famed Pakistan Air Force Academy in Risalpur, after the second war with India.

In 1967, he gained commission in the Pakistan Air Force as a P/Off. In the GD(P) branch.

At the PAF Academy, he qualified to fly the F-6 Farmer fighter jet, and was posted to join the No. 25 Squadron Night Strike Eagles in 1970. In 1971, F/Off. Mir successfully flew his F-6 Farmer against the Indian Air Force’s MiG-21, and was credited with shooting the Indian Air Force’s jet down with his missile.^:

After the war in 1971, Flt-Lt. Mir attended the Air War College where he attained his masters in War studies, and later went on to attend the National Defence University where he graduated with masters in Strategic studies. During this time, he became acquainted with then-Brig. Pervez Musharraf. In 2015, the Air Force’s Flight Inquiry Board and the CAA dismissed the claims of sabotage when they submitted their yearlong investigation reports to the Public Accounts Committee of the Pakistan Parliament, citing the poor maintenance of the aircraft. They backed up their evidence when identifying the faulty Fokker F27 Friendship that the Air Force had transferred the plane to Navy but the aircraft was returned to the Air Force due to its faults during its flight.

History

On 10 April 1959, on the occasion of the Eid ul-Fitr festival holiday in Pakistan, an Indian Air Force (IAF) English Electric Canberra B(I)58 of No. 106 Squadron entered Pakistani airspace on a photo reconnaissance mission. Two PAF F-86F Sabres (Flt. Lt. M. N. Butt (leader) and Flt. Lt. M. Yunis) of No. 15 Squadron on Air Defence Alert (ADA) were scrambled from Sargodha Air Base to intercept the IAF aircraft. Butt attempted to bring down the Canberra by firing his Sabre’s machine guns, but the Canberra was flying at an altitude of more than 50,000 feet—beyond the operational ceiling of the F-86F. When Yunis took over from his leader, the Canberra suddenly lost height while executing a turn over Rawalpindi. Yunis fired a burst that struck the Canberra at an altitude of 47,500 feet and brought it down over Rawat, marking the first direct aerial victory of the PAF. Both crew members of the IAF Canberra ejected and were captured by Pakistani authorities. They were subsequently released after remaining in detention for some time.