Attock Rises Again: From Asif the Soldier to a Living Military Tradition

The soil of Attock has listened to the footsteps of soldiers for centuries—sometimes through the distant echoes of battlefields, sometimes in the solemn silence that follows a martyr’s final journey beneath the national flag, and sometimes through the name of a son who suddenly finds himself at the center of attention across the world.

Muhammad Asif of Pindi Gheb has once again brought the name of Attock into the headlines.

Known as “Asif Fauji,” and also referred to as “Musa,” he became the subject of reports in the Indian media that claimed he had been killed during an operation in occupied Kashmir. Yet, when Pakistan’s Director General Inter-Services Public Relations, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, addressed the press, Asif himself appeared alive before the journalists.

A former commando of the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group, Asif stated that he joined the army in 2000 and became part of the SSG in 2005. After serving for nearly eighteen years, he retired in 2023.

He said that he first learned of the reports of his own death through friends. He also received telephone calls from Indian numbers. Various Indian media reports had referred to him by names including “Asif Fauji,” “Musa,” and “Hashim Musa,” linking him to alleged activities in Kashmir and reporting his death during an operation. Pakistan rejected those claims and presented Asif himself before journalists.

From that moment, the episode ceased to be merely another news story.

It became connected to something much older—the long military tradition of Attock and its surrounding lands, a region whose sons have appeared on battlefields in different eras, under different flags, and in wars separated by generations.

From the military records of the British period and the two World Wars to the later chapters of Pakistan’s own military history, the soldiers of Attock and the wider region have left behind records of service, courage and sacrifice. British military documents and international wartime archives preserve references to soldiers from this broader region, while in Pakistan’s later history, too, the names of men from Attock have emerged in the stories of sacrifice and valor.

Among them was Captain Asfandyar Bukhari Shaheed, who lost his life in 2015 while leading troops during the terrorist attack on the Pakistan Air Force camp at Badhaber. Another was Naib Subedar Ahmed Khan Shaheed, an SSG soldier from Bolianwal, who sacrificed his life along the Line of Control.

These are not merely individual names.

They are glimpses of a tradition rooted in the soil itself—a tradition in which a man who puts on a uniform carries with him not only the responsibility of his regiment, but also the identity of the land from which he came.

That is why the story of Muhammad Asif cannot easily be separated from Attock.

The former commando from Pindi Gheb became the subject of a story that crossed borders—from Indian media reports into Pakistan’s military and journalistic discourse. Yet behind all the headlines, all the aliases and all the controversy surrounding the reports, one identity remains constant:

Attock.

For Attock, this is more than a passing news story.

It is another glimpse of an identity shaped over generations by soldiers, martyrs, military traditions and memories handed down from one generation to the next.

Attock has watched its sons leave for distant battlefields. It has watched some return beneath the folds of the national flag. It has watched their names find their way into the pages of history.

And now Muhammad Asif has become a new chapter in that continuing story.

A story in which the past does not disappear, but keeps returning in new forms.

A story in which the uniform changes, the battlefield changes, and even the nature of war changes—but the memory of the soil remains.

And perhaps that is why, once again, it feels as though—

_{Translation of اٹک چھا گیا : آصف فوجی سے عسکری روایت تک}

Dr. Shuja Akhtar Awan