Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq محمد ضياء الحق (b. August 12, 1924–August 17, 1988) was the president and military ruler of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988. Appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976, General Zia-ul-Haq came to power after he overthrew ruling Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a military coup d'état on July 5, 1977 and became the state's third ruler to impose martial law. The coup itself was largely bloodless, but he subsequently had Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a very popular leader and his politcal benefactor executed in a very revengeful and controversial fashion.

Zia initially ruled for a year as martial law administrator, and later assumed the post of President of Pakistan in September 1978. Zia was killed along with several of his top generals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel in a mysterious aircraft crash on August 17, 1988, the circumstances of which remain unclear. His death and the death of the American Ambassador is considered by many high ranking officials to be a well planned assassination.
Zia, a member of the Arain caste, was born in Jalandhar, India, in 1924 as the second child of Muhammad Akbar, who worked in the GHQ in Delhi and Simla pre-partition. He married Shafiq Jahan and had five children. His two sons went into politics. He completed his initial education in Simla and then at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He was commissioned in the British Indian Army in a cavalry regiment in 1943 and served during World War II. After Pakistan gained its independence, Zia joined the newly formed Pakistani Army as a major. He trained in the United States in 1962–1964 at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia was a tank commander. He was stationed in Jordan from 1967 to 1970, helping in the training of Jordanian soldiers, as well as leading the training mission into battle during the Black September in Jordan operations, a strategy that proved crucial to King Hussein's remaining in power. On 1 April 1976, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto appointed Zia-ul-Haq as Chief of Army Staff, ahead of a number of more senior officers.