ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI: Pakistan’s hawkish Islamist general Hamid Gul, who, as director general of that country’s all-powerful Inter Services Intelligence was known to have nurtured Khalistani and Kashmiri militants, died of brain haemorrhage in Murree on Sunday aged 78.

Originally from Sarghoda in Pakistan’s Punjab, Gul was General Zia-ul Haq’s personal favourite. He is considered the brain behind Pakistan’s proxy wars with India, first in the Punjab, and then in Kashmir, and is referred to as “godfather” of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which India says carried out 26/11 Mumbai attack and numerous other terror strikes in the country.

He openly shared stage on multiple occasions with jihadists like Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed, spewing venom against India and the US.

Gul had dismissed allegations against a Pakistan hand in 26/11 attack saying, “They (India) are saying these boys were village boys trained to be killers. How can this be believed? Village boys don't know anything about a five-star hotel. They would not know how to use the toilet.”

Gul and three other Pakistanis, all said to be former top officers of the ISI, were on a US list for UN sanctions against them for alleged links to terror activities.

Commissioned in the army in 1958 in the Armoured Corps (19 Lancers), Gul was a tank commander at the Chawinda front during the 1965 war. Between 1972 and 1976, he served under Gen Zia as a battalion commander. He was promoted to Brigadier in 1978 and rose to be the commander of the 1st Armoured Division, Multan in 1980. He also conducted the Zarb-e-Momin military exercise in November-December 1989 against India.

According to late counter-terrorism expert B Raman, Gul had told Benazir Bhutto when she became PM, “Madam, keeping Punjab destabilized is equivalent to the Pakistan army having an extra division at no cost to the taxpayers.”

After Gul retired, he frequently went on TV to defend the Taliban and Kashmiri militants and blame a Jewish conspiracy for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. His tenure at the ISI and his outspoken backing of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and other extremists showed murky loyalties at play years later when the US and Pakistan formed an unlikely alliance following 9/11.

Others viewed Gul as an increasingly out-of-touch braggart later in life, as he appeared on countless TV programmes warning of dark conspiracies and demanding his country militarily confront its nuclear-armed neighbor, India.

“The unruly mujahedeen commanders obeyed and respected him like no one else,” Gul’s online autobiography reads. “Later on with the advent of the Taliban's rise he was equally admired and respected.''

Gul became an outspoken opponent to the US while cheering the Taliban in public and media appearances after 9/11. There were allegations, however, Gul had a more hands-on approach, like in US intelligence reports later released by WikiLeaks that alleged he dispatched three men in December 2006 to carry out attacks in Afghanistan's capital.

“Reportedly Gul’s final comment to the three individuals was to make the snow warm in Kabul, basically telling them to set Kabul aflame,” the report said.

When the US special forces killed bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011, Gul helped spread a rumor that US forces actually killed the Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan and brought his body to Pakistan to humiliate the country.

“My feeling is that it was all a hoax, a drama which has been crafted, and badly scripted I would say,” he said. In conspiracy-minded Pakistan, many believed him. As the last line of his online autobiography reads, “People wait to listen to his direction before forming their own opinions.”