Major General Amir Faisal Alvi

Major General Ameer Faisal Alavi (28 March 1954 – 19 November 2008) was a Pakistan Army two-star general and special operations expert who was the first General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the elite Special Service Group of Pakistan Army. A former member of Special Service Group, he was credited with masterminding the Angoor Ada operation in 2004, where many Arabs and Chechens based in the tribal areas were killed or arrested and turned over to the Americans.

On 19 November 2008, while driving to work in his car in Islamabad, he was shot dead by three unknown gunmen. It was alleged that Ilyas Kashmiri, the chief of Jammu & Kashmir chapter of Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, was behind the murder of Maj-Gen Alavi at the behest of the Taliban in North Waziristan.

Early life

Alavi was born and raised in Kenya during his childhood (which at that time was a British colony) as a British national. His parents had migrated to the country from Pakistan. He belonged to the Awan tribe of Pakistan. In 1966 at the age of 12, he came back to Pakistan to study at Abbottabad Public School where he studied from 1966–1971. Out of his love and zeal for the military he renounced his British nationality. He got his Pakistani citizenship when he wrote to then President of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to be granted citizenship in order to be able to join the Pakistan Army. He thus renounced his British nationality to join Pakistan Army. He was commissioned in the 49th PMA Long Course in 1974 in the 26th Cavalry Regiment of the Armoured Corps.

Family

Maj Gen Alavi has two daughters who live in with their mother but at the time of his death they were both in USA. His sister Nadira Naipaul is a former journalist and married to noted British-Trinidadian novelist and Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul; however, he broke contacts with his sister when he got to know that she had married Naipaul, who adheres to another religion. At the time of his death he was living with his wife in Bahria Town, Rawalpindi.