Later that autumn, Imran was robbed at gunpoint while driving through the outskirts of Islamabad, according to Tehreek-e-Insaf officials. ‘The chairman was proceeding with his maid and two sons, when he was forced to stop abruptly by an overtaking car. Two men with semi-automatic weapons emerged from nearby bushes and relieved the party of their mobile phones, credit cards and a purse. The incident symbolises the complete breakdown of law and order in the country,’ said Akbar S. Babar, a party spokesman. A week later, Imran’s representatives were back in the High Court, arguing over the terms of the settlement of the 1996 libel action brought by Ian Botham; according to the Daily Telegraph, the two parties had ‘squabbled about costs’ at semi-regular intervals during the previous eight years. From London Imran flew to Washington DC, where he was reportedly ‘hauled up and grilled for three hours by US immigration officials’, alerted, perhaps, by his recent remarks attributing suicide attacks in central Asia to America’s ‘ill-conceived and arrogant’ policy in the region. A Pakistani travelling in the same party had supposedly remonstrated with the authorities, asking them to respect ‘our greatest all-rounder’. There were no cricket fans among the welcoming committee. The semi-shaven, middle-aged man wearing a tan-coloured shalwar kameez and carrying a copy of the Koran meant nothing to them except as a potential terrorist. Imran was eventually able to proceed to a charity fundraiser in New York: from there it was on to California and then a dinner party in India where, somewhat improbably, he found himself sitting next to Goldie Hawn. Shortly afterwards, Karachi-based press reports began insisting that he and the 59-year-old actress were an item. Imran angrily blamed the Pakistani intelligence agency for spreading the ‘stupid’ rumour.
To compound a generally wretched year, Imran could only watch in dismay as the man he now called the ‘odious’ state president engaged in various increasingly feckless campaigns on behalf of the ‘war on terror’. In the early hours of 16 March 2004, Pakistani Frontier Corps forces 2,000 strong surrounded a mud-walled compound in Kalosha in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, looking for militants. Once again, the soldiers found that they had walked into a trap: a two-week siege followed, at the end of which an estimated 700 men, women and children had died and 50,000 citizens of Kalosha and the surrounding villages had fled after the Pakistani air force bombed their homes. Later in 2004, Musharraf and his army chiefs stationed a garrison of 80,000 troops in South Waziristan. The militants, led by Abdullah Mahsud, a one-legged horseman with a shoulder-length mane of hair flying from his red turban, promptly rode off up the mountain pass and relocated to North Waziristan. Some American legislators were beginning to ask where exactly their roughly $2 billion in annual aid to Pakistan was going. On 2 November 2004, George W. Bush was re-elected US president.
Six months later, on 9 May 2005, Newsweek magazine carried a report that US interrogators had desecrated copies of the Koran while questioning prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay naval base. The 300-word story cited sources as saying that investigators looking into abuses at the military gaol had found that American GIs ‘placed Korans on toilets, and in at least one case had flushed a holy book down the pan’. Imran lost little time in calling a press conference in Islamabad, in which, flourishing a copy of the magazine, he demanded that President Musharraf secure an official apology for the incident, which was ‘a disgrace’ and ‘an insult to Muslims’, who were now themselves ‘under attack’ from the West. At least 17 people were killed and up to 600 injured when demonstrators then took to the streets in Peshawar, Lahore and other parts of the country to shout anti-US slogans and burn the American flag. In Jalalabad, Afghanistan, two ‘foreign missionaries’ (an Australian and a Pole, it turned out) were pulverised by a mob of well over 300 citizens running through the town square. Three more people, including an Afghan soldier, were injured in a subsequent pitched battle over possession of the men’s dead bodies. It took some five days for the disturbances throughout the region to be fully brought under control.
Imran remained unapologetic, even if he disassociated himself from the violence. ‘To throw the Koran in the toilet is the greatest violation of a Muslim’s human rights,’ he told the Guardian. ‘Should we close Amnesty and the Red Cross because they bring up violations? When you speak out, people react. Bloodshed is regrettable, but that’s not the point.’ When I asked him about it in a phone call to Islamabad, Imran’s voice, previously unenthused, grew quite heated. ‘What I said was, “This article has appeared, and if it’s true we’re no longer in a war against terror. We’re in a war against Islam.” That’s what I told them in the Assembly … It’s the ultimate insult to our faith,’ he boomed. Imran’s friend Syra Vahidy met him not long after the incident and recalls, ‘All he wanted to do was sit and talk about politics, which basically consisted of a monologue on his part against America.’ Newsweek subsequently disowned much of its original story. The magazine’s Washington bureau chief, Dan Klaidman, said that the apparent errors in its report were ‘terribly unfortunate’, and he offered his sympathies to the victims of the violence. After a lengthy inquiry, the US Department of Defense was unable to confirm a ‘toilet incident, except for one case, a log entry, when a detainee was reported by a guard to be ripping pages out of a Koran and putting [them] in the toilet to stop it up as a protest. But not where we did it.’
Imran took a certain amount of flak as a result both of his original speech and subsequent developments. ‘Blood flowed indirectly because of what Khan said,’ one Washington newspaper’s account opened, and went on to offer the summation: ‘Newsweek lied, people died.’ Most editorial judgements were similarly harsh, if not more so. To the Weekly Standard he was the ‘Khan artist’ who continued to ‘inveigh against the West by day and enjoy its pleasures by night’. As an overview of Imran’s life it was roughly 15 years behind the times, but one perhaps took the magazine’s point. A representative blog posted in December 2005 nominated the ‘so-called hero’ as ‘hypocrite of the year … When the Muslim extremists next decide to riot I’m sure that he’ll be giving them some advice on how to throw the Molotov cocktails properly, although I’m not sure if that will involve the use of a bottle top to aid the spin.’ There was substantially more in this overall vein on the internet. One anonymous correspondent wrote a 4,000-word exercise in journalistic exasperation, calling Imran a ‘fallen star’, but ultimately concluding that ‘whether or not they agree with him and his policies, people like him … The Newsweek saga was the least of it. Imran has committed untold public blunders and flip-flopped around like a newly hooked fish … Yet even the worst gaffes simply do not outweigh the genuine affection and goodwill millions feel for him. Some political commentators have trouble realising that the public give as much weight to qualities like optimism, honesty, courage, decisiveness and individuality as they do actual achievements.’
In late May 2005, just days after the Newsweek riots, Imran was in the United States in his capacity as chairman of the board of the Shaukat Khanum hospital. In a whirlwind tour that took him to Washington DC, New York, Denver and Los Angeles, he raised some $600,000 in ‘urgently needed’ operating funds, while submitting to an average of 20 interviews and other public events a day. Two months later Imran was again in the US, the country he had once reportedly stigmatised as part of an ‘axis of evil’ with a ruthless intolerance of all foreign and domestic dissidents. Eluding the official dragnet, he was able to host or attend another series of lucrative fundraisers. On 16 July, Imran was the keynote speaker at the Human Development Foundation’s annual Southern Californian benefit dinner. The HDF describes itself as a non-governmental organisation which ‘aim[s] to assist the disenfranchised in Pakistan and elsewhere through education, literacy, infrastructure improvements and micro-loan based business creation projects’. If Imran had any qualms about continuing to tap wealthy American donors to support his various causes, they weren’t evident that night in Santa Monica. His speech enjoyed a prolonged standing ovation. The evening then concluded with a t
wo-hour performance by the 84-year-old Pakistani ghazal singer Habib Wali Muhammed and his group, who again brought the audience to its feet with a spirited rendition of the national song, ‘Roshan-o-Rakhshan, Nayyar-o-Tabaan, Pakistan rahay’.
As everyone was finally packing up and leaving the hotel, a middle-aged female fan named Adis Lee approached Imran and requested an autograph. He told her he was happy to oblige. As he was signing the proffered piece of paper, Lee asked him if he felt he had made a ‘political mistake’ in speaking out about the Newsweek story.
Imran knocked that one out of the park. ‘I’m not talking about politics. I’m talking about decency. It was a foul thing to do. It’s a desecration.’ At that he affably posed for a picture before walking off into the muggy California night.
While Imran was travelling around raising money, much of the world’s attention was centred on the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London. Of the four suicide bombers, three were of Pakistani origin. In response to widespread criticism that he had taken the West’s money and done nothing with it, General Musharraf insisted, ‘Our … law enforcement agencies have completely shattered al-Qaeda’s vertical and horizontal links and deteriorated its communications and propaganda set-up; it no longer has any command structure in Pakistan.’ The general then quietly ordered the detention of some 720 Pakistani nationals suspected of terrorist sympathies. It is estimated that he had arrested a total of 3,700 citizens in the six years of his rule to date.
Imran was unimpressed. ‘Musharraf is destroying our democracy by using this war on terror,’ he said. ‘Why did he put so many people behind bars when Pakistan had no connection with the London bombings? In the world’s eye Pakistan became a hub of terrorism. And at home, it reinforces the idea that Musharraf is a stooge implementing an American agenda.’
‘After all this time,’ the Weekly Standard was forced to admit, there were still several mysteries to Imran, ‘the aggressively patriotic Pakistani who like[d] to unwind with prolonged stays abroad’: the principal one being that he seemed to be several different people. Since 1996, the chief image to emerge had been that of a prodigiously humourless tub-thumper who stormed around with what one writer called his ‘permanently hooded eyes and a scowl … somehow you always felt you were in the presence of an unusually well-groomed scorpion’.
Still, those looking for signs of conventional political airs, or even not-so-conventional, might have been disappointed. This was the same man who in the summer of 2005 hurriedly excused himself from the joys of a Guardian interview at the Goldsmiths’ mansion in Richmond in order to sit, spellbound, over the fifth day’s television coverage of England playing Australia at Old Trafford. Australia’s final pair kept out the last 24 balls to save the game. Watching the cricket, Imran came alive. The clouds lifted. ‘That was fantastic!’ he kept enthusing as he darted back and forth between the interview and the television set. Somewhere under the formidably serious Muslim paladin there was still a flannelled fool struggling to get out. A family friend who happened to be visiting told me that everyone had been ‘entranced and engaged’ by the sight of the old player as he ‘demonstrated various English and Australian bowling techniques’ for the benefit of his sons, who, like most of the country, seem to have taken to the sport as a result of that unforgettable series. Two months later, Imran responded to what he perceived to be negative statements emanating from the Pakistani captain and board prior to their home rubber against England. ‘Inzamam has said the English start as favourites,’ he noted reprovingly. ‘The PCB chairman agrees. I don’t understand it. Whenever I stepped on the cricket field I always thought we could beat anybody. I would never admit defeat before the match began. They’re going to destroy the team by saying it.’ Imran then took the opportunity to catch up with some of his former colleagues at an official dinner later that autumn in Lahore. So often defensive and surly in his dealings with the media, he struck at least one veteran correspondent as ‘relaxed, witty and incisive’ in the company of men who, ‘with one or two exceptions, still adored him’.
This was in late September 2005. On Saturday 8 October, an earthquake in northern Pakistan killed 83,000 and injured 75,000; half the victims were children, who were trapped in school buildings. According to some published reports, Imran had been in London at the time, but flew home immediately afterwards. In other accounts he was already on the scene and volunteered for relief work in the worst affected areas, describing it as ‘the most severe national crisis’ in Pakistan’s modern history.
Ten weeks after these events, US missiles were targetted at Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was thought to be visiting one of his wives in the frontier village of Damadola. Part of a vast, primitive plain with irrigated plantations of maize and squash, and populated chiefly by goat herds, the spot can normally be accessed only by the vertiginous hairpin bends of the Malakand Pass. On this occasion the attack missed al-Zawahiri but killed 13 residents, including women and children, in addition to five alleged terrorists. The political repercussions continued long after the explosions had subsided. Imran was one of several National Assembly representatives who seized on the incident. ‘This is a civil war in the making,’ he said. ‘Refugees have been created. Innocent people killed; children left without arms and legs. All under the magic mantra of fighting so-called extremism … ‘ General Musharraf subsequently issued a protest to the United States, asking to be better informed the next time they intended bombing his citizens.
Under the circumstances, President Bush’s visit to Islamabad over the weekend of 4–5 March 2006 was judged only a mixed success. To mark his arrival a force of some 1,700 Taliban irregulars marched on the north-west garrison town of Miram Shah. The fighting lasted for three days, at the end of which 262 soldiers and civilians had died. After a suicide attack on the Pakistani army position, special forces blew up the town’s main Islamic school, which they claimed had been used as a militant base. Not surprisingly, the overall security situation in the region dominated the talks between Musharraf and Bush, who did, nonetheless, find time to visit a heavily policed cricket match. Imran was unable to join them, as the state president had ordered him kept under house arrest for the duration of the visit. Some seven months later, the US launched a missile strike against what was variously described as being a ‘theological school’ or a ‘terrorist camp’ in North Waziristan. On that occasion 86 people died. The next day, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Pakistani army checkpoint, killing 35 soldiers and wounding 60.
Imran’s reaction to these events was so archetypal as to impress itself on numerous observers, foreign and domestic. To the Daily Telegraph, he was ‘a body linguist’s dream. Talking about the painfulness of divorce causes him to vanish into the depths of his chair, pulling both sides of his jacket across his chest and pinning them there as if he’s on a chilly outfield. [But] get him on the subject of the American and Pakistani army bombing of his homeland and he’s on the edge of his seat, arms flailing and eyes blazing.’ Back in the National Assembly, a fellow representative watched as Imran rose to join in an already quite lively debate on the tribal areas, ‘leaning over the polished wooden desk at a sharp angle’, and instantly chopping the air with ‘long, bony hands’ to call for order.
The colleague, seated nearby, knew what was coming. Even the ruling coalition had admitted to reservations about the specific direction the war on terror now seemed to be taking. Sure enough, Imran launched into a stentorian defence of ‘Pakistan’s sovereign integrity’, paused to decry the ‘excesses of foreign intervention’ and concluded that ‘we are in a war of attrition’. The speech itself was actually not searingly original. But Imran’s delivery left no room for doubt as to his passion on the subject. There was real anger in his voice. When I asked him about his views on the matter two years later, he practically shouted down the line, ‘People just don’t understand what’s going on out here. If they did they wouldn’t countenance it.’
With the assembly shuttered up fo
r one of its lengthy recesses, Imran took the opportunity to spend several weeks in London. As usual, he took up temporary residence in his former mother-in-law’s home. When the Sunday Times came to call they found that Imran had ‘managed to make a complete mess of the sitting room, with items of underwear and toiletries scattered across the floral sofas and plump cushions, [but] sat serenely in the middle of it all, smiling as his sons’ bickering over the playstation in the next room threatened to escalate into violence’. While he was in London, there would be seven or eight requests a day for him to address think tanks, attend charity dinners and give interviews. He accepted the last indiscriminately, even ones where the journalist seemed to be less interested in Pakistani self-determination than in his sex life. One broadsheet reporter was promised a full 60 minutes of Imran’s time in which to talk about ‘the world situation’ over refreshments at Ormeley Lodge. He arrived to find that an elegant tea service had been laid out among piles of ‘sporting paraphernalia, dumb-bells and gym socks’. Imran courteously began the proceedings by announcing that they would not be interrupted ‘except for phone calls that simply can’t wait’. During the hour, there were five such calls, three of them on matters sufficiently complicated that, as the writer puts it, ‘it was essential to talk at length’. It wasn’t an untypical Imran performance. Trying to cram everything in, ‘he would hurl himself from place to place … More than once I saw him literally run the few steps from a doorway in the [Goldsmiths’] house to a car waiting at the curb.’ The relay would then be taken up by a driver named Abdul Qadeer (not to be confused with his late-1980s ‘VIP courier’), who often took Imran to and from Heathrow. For the outgoing trip Qadeer knew to be sitting at the door with the motor running, as there was no time to spare — ‘for a 4.15 plane, he left at 3.15’ — and Imran then spent the journey ‘snap[ping] out a series of instructions on the phone in breakneck English or Urdu’.
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