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Deaths on February 20

2003Feb, 20

Mushaf Ali Mir

Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistani air marshal (b. 1947)
Air Chief Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir (Urdu: مصحف على مير; March 5, 1947 – 20 February 2003) NI(m), HI(m), SI(m), SBt. was an influential statesman and a four-star air force general who served as the Chief of Air Staff of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), appointed on 20 November 2000 until his accidental death in a plane crash on 20 February 2003.A fighter pilot and a strategist, he briefly served at command level in the ISI before controversially promoted as a four-star air officer to command the air force in 2000. In 2001–02, he also commanded and provided the strategy to deploy troops during the military standoff with India. In addition, Air Chief Marshal Mir later went onto facilitate the United States military's war logistics for war operations in Afghanistan. His appointment was cut short when a former PAF Fokker F-27 in which he was a passenger crashed near Kohat, Pakistan.

His death has been subject of numerous conspiracy theories, with many American authors charging him of having advanced knowledge on terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001.

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Events on 2003

  • 17Mar

    2003 invasion of Iraq

    Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Robin Cook, resigns from the British Cabinet in disagreement with government plans for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
  • 7Apr

    Saddam Hussein

    U.S. troops capture Baghdad; Saddam Hussein's regime falls two days later.
  • 27Aug

    North Korea and weapons of mass destruction

    The first six-party talks, involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, convene to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns of the North Korean nuclear weapons program.
  • 12Sep

    Pan Am Flight 103

    The United Nations lifts sanctions against Libya after that country agreed to accept responsibility and recompense the families of victims in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
  • 12Nov

    2003 invasion of Iraq

    Iraq War: In Nasiriyah, Iraq, at least 23 people, among them the first Italian casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, are killed in a suicide bomb attack on an Italian police base.