General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan (Urdu: ; 4 February 1917 – 10 August 1980), commonly known as Yahya Khan, was a Pakistani military general who served as the third President of Pakistan and Chief Martial Law Administrator following his predecessor Ayub Khan's resignation from 25 March 1969 until his resignation on 20 December 1971. During his dictatorship, he ordered Operation Searchlight in an effort to suppress Bengali nationalism which triggered the Bangladesh Liberation War. He was central to the perpetration of the Bangladesh genocide, the genocide of the populace of modern-day Bangladesh which resulted in death of 300,000–3,000,000 Bengalis. Born in Chakwal, Khan was educated from the Colonel Brown Cambridge School in Dehradun and the University of the Punjab in Lahore. He joined the Indian Military Academy and was commissioned to the British Indian Army in 1939. Khan served in the Second World War in the Mediterranean theatre against the Axis powers and rose to major military positions in the British infantry division. Following the creation of Pakistan in 1947, he was promoted to several ranks of the Pakistan Army. During the Second Kashmir War, Khan helped in executing the covert infiltration in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1965. After being controversially appointed to assume the army command in 1966, Khan succeeded the presidency from Ayub Khan, who was forced to resign by protests. As the third president of Pakistan, Yahya Khan enforced martial law by suspending the constitution in 1969. Holding the country's first nationwide elections in 1970, he delayed the power transition to the victorious Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from East Pakistan, which led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in March 1971. Khan subsequently ordered Operation Searchlight in an effort to suppress Bengali nationalism. He was central to the perpetration of the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. In December 1971, the Pakistani Army carried out preemptive strikes against the Bengali-allied Indian Army, culminating the start of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. The two wars resulted in the surrender of the Pakistani army, and East Pakistan seceded as Bangladesh. Following these events, Khan resigned from the military command in the same month and turned over the presidential leadership to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Khan remained under house surveillance prior to 1979 when he was released by Fazle Haq. Khan died the following year in Rawalpindi and was buried in Peshawar. Khan's two-year short regime is regarded as the leading cause of the breakup of Pakistan.