Major General Akbar Khan, DSO (1912–1993) was a decorated officer of the British Indian Army and later Pakistan Army. He commanded the Kashmiri rebels and Pashtun irregulars in the First Kashmir War under the pseudonym 'General Tariq'. In 1951, he was convicted of an attempted coup that came to be known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy, and served a five-year prison sentence. Later he served as the Chief of National Security under prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Under his guidance, the Army quelled the Baloch Insurgency during the early mid-1970s. Early life and the army Akbar Khan was born on 1 December 1912, in the village of Utmanzai in the district of Charsadda. He was the son of Muhammad Akram Khan. He belonged to the affluent Pashtun family of the Utmanzais (Parichkhail Family), sub-clan of the larger Kheshgi tribe. Waziristan War of 1937 and Second World War He took part in operations in Waziristan war during 1937–1938. During the Second World War he served with the 14th battalion, 13th Frontier Force Rifles, part of 100th Indian Infantry Brigade of the 20th Indian Division during active combat operations against the Imperial Japanese Army in Burma. As a Captain and temporary Major he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry and leadership displayed during the Battle of Kwanlan Ywathit. Indo-Pakistan War 1947–1948 At the time of the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Akbar Khan was a member of the sub-committee involved in the division of the armed forces between India and Pakistan. Akbar Khan's own book Raiders in Kashmir (National Book Foundation, Pakistan, 1975) gives a thorough account of his role in the Pakistani attack on Maharaja Hari Singh's princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. His original role was in arranging guns and devising strategies for the Poonch rebels organised by Sardar Ibrahim with the assistance of the Pakistan Army. He makes clear he had no involvement in the Pashtun lashkars organised by Khurshid Anwar, which invaded the state on 22 October 1947. Less than two months after Independence, fighting started in Kashmir, the Indian Army landed in Srinagar and confronted the Pathan tribesmen who were advancing towards the valley. Akbar Khan, who was then a Brigadier, assumed command of the regulars and irregulars fighting against the Indian forces and was given the code name "General Tariq". The Rawalpindi Conspiracy Change of heart It was during this period that he first