Masood Sharif Khan Khattak or Major (R) Masood Sharif Khan(born June 5, 1950 in the city of Karak- Karak, Pakistan) is an civilianintelligence officer and the first and former Director General of theIntelligence Bureau (I.B). He has served as the Vice President of the PakistanPeoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians(PPPP) underthe leadership of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto.Heplayed a key role in a successful crackdown against the terrorists and their separatistmovement in the mid 90s.
He also lead a famous intelligence operation named MidnightJackals,which thwarted a military coupe attempt of the elected PPP governmentin 1990. He was imprisoned in 1996 by the government of Farooq Leghari where hewas charged with launching widespread wiretapping against government officials.Released in 2000 he unsuccessfully contested as a Pakistan Peoples Partycandidate the 2002 general elections from Karak. He resigned from the PPP in2007 in protest against increasing violence in the North-West FrontierProvince.
Early life
Masood Sharif Khan Khattak was born on June 5, 1950 toCaptain Muhammad Sharif Khan of the Pakistan Navy and Begum Jan both belongingto the same village in Karak District. Masood grew up in a typical armed forceshousehold with strict discipline, complete with a dinner bell at the diningtable. Masood is the eldest of three siblings, one sister and two brothers.Traveling and reading for education were the order of the day at the Sharifhousehold. Formal dining engagements involving the royalty and influentialpeople of Pakistan, Britain and India were a regular feature at the Sharifresidence in Karachi and Delhi.
Education
Masood Sharif Khan Khattak was educated in Delhi PublicSchool. Later on after getting a Gold Medal from Sindh province, he completedhis college at the prestigious Cadet College Petaro, where he was friends withthe current President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari.[3] He was also theyoungest graduate of the Pakistan Military Academy.He completed his degree inWar Studies at Command and Staff College, Quetta in 1978.
Military and civil service
He retired from the army in 1986.He served as a FederalSecretary from 1992 to 1997. During this time he was appointed as theDirector-General, Federal Investigation Agency from 1992 to 1993. He was alsoappointed as the Director-General, Intelligence Bureau from 1993 to 1996. Thisis where he played a pivotal role in securing Pakistan's borders in Baluchistanand in securing peace in Karachi. He increased the size of the organization tothree times its original size and revamped its organizational structure andintroduced STS Anti-Terrorism training for all officers of the organization.
Masood Sharif Khan Khattak created and headed a cooperationcommittee, chaired by the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister. Thiscommittee consisted of the Director Generals of the Military Intelligence (MI),the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), Naval Intelligence (NI), Air ForceIntelligence (AFI), the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA). He was arrested by the Farooq Leghari government in1996 and imprisoned on charges of corruption as well as allegations whichincluded widespread wiretapping of opposition politicians, judges and senators.
Released in 1999, he was investigated by the NAB oncorruption charges and after six years of intense investigation he wasofficially cleared of all the charges that were leveled against him. Duringthat time he was very vocal in his criticism of the then ruler Gen Musharrafand he chose not to go in exile and lived visibly in Pakistan despite the NABinvestigations. His name does not figure in any of the NRO beneficiaries listpublished. No case of corruption was even so much as filed against him in anycourt. In 2002 he was appointed as the Senior Vice President of PakistanPeople's Party Parliamentarian.
He was defeated in the 2002 general elections by a candidateof the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal in his home constituency NA-15(KARAK NWFP) whichhas always been a conservative constituency and Masood Sharif Khan Khattak hasbeen the only person who has ever contested in this Constituency on the PPPticket. He came in second to the MMA candidate and the votes that he receivedwere his own and not that of the PPP which has no vote bank at all in Karak.
