Ali Kuli Khan Khattak comes from a military family; his father, Habibullah Khan Khattak, was a senior general officer in the Pakistan Army as well as World war hero. After passing the entrance exam with high records, Khattak applied in the ministry of defence for the armed forces. After passing the physical, educational qualifications and social psychological analysis tests, Khattak was asked to report to Pakistan Military Academy. In 1961, he joined the Pakistan Military Academy and graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the class of 29th PMA Long Course together with Pervez Musharraf and Abdul Aziz Mirza of Navy. Khattak stood first in his course and high academic marks in his educational courses comparing to other officers of joint forces. Khattak was commissioned in the 12th Battalion of the Baloch Regiment, the same regiment his father had earlier served. He participated well in the 1965 war with India and commanded a small infantry platoon during the conflict. After the war, Kuli attended the Armed Forces War College and proceeded to attend the National Defence University and graduated with M.Sc. in Intelligence assessment. He served as an instructor and professor in Command and Staff College in Quetta and research assistant in Armed Forces War College. In 1974, he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel; and colonel in 1978. In 1986, he was promoted to one star rank, a Brigadier, and commanded the intelligence brigade. In 1991, he was promoted to Major-General rank and subsequently became General Officer Commanding of 8th Infantry Division. In 1994, he was appointed as director of directorate-general of the Military Intelligence. In 1995, along with Lieutenant-general Jehangir Karamat, Khattak successfully infiltrated and thwarted the attempted coup hatched by major-general Zahirul Islam Abbasi in an attempt to overthrow the government of Prime minister Benazir Bhutto and replacing with far-right theocratic regime. He was honored by Prime minister Benazir Bhutto publicly and was succeeded to three-star appointment.
Exposing the 1995 coup d'état attempt
As the DGMI, he exposed the 1995 Pakistani coup d'état attempt in which Major General Zahirul Islam Abbasi tried to overthrow the Benazir Bhutto government and install an Islamist regime. This was the fourth failed coup attempt in Pakistani history. The first one was the 1951 Rawalpindi Conspiracy when Maj Gen Akbar Khan, then CGS tried to overthrow the Prime MinisterLiaquat Ali Khan government over the handling of 1948 Kashmir War, the second one was the Attock Conspiracy Case during tenure of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and the third one was during General Zia-ul-Haq's era when Maj Gen Tajammal Hussain Malik was arrested along with other conspirators.
Staff and field appointments
Ali Kuli took over the X Corps in October 1995 after his investigations led the Army to uncover the coup attempt. He replaced the then X corps commander Lt Gen Ghulam Muhammad Malik, whose name also surfaced in the coup attempts, but was later exonerated. Kuli later became the Chief of General Staff after Lt Gen Iftikhar Ali Khan was made the Defence Secretary by then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He retired from the army when Musharraf was made the COAS in October 1998. At that time, Musharraf superseded two senior officers; Ali Kuli Khan Khattak and Khalid Nawaz, the then Quarter-Master General.
Resignation
In 1995, he was promoted to Lieutenant-General rank with Pervez Musharraf seconded to him. Problems with Musharraf started in 1995, when Khattak was selected by Chief of Army StaffGeneral Jehangir Karamat as Chief of General Staff. His seniority listing had been manipulated by the previous Chief of Army Staff General Waheed Kakar in an effort to promote him as Chief of Army Staff. He also had cordial relations with Chief of Army Staff General Karamat, but this came at a bad juncture for Khattak in 1998. In 1998 Prime minister Nawaz Sharif forcefully relieved General Karamat of his duties. Prime minister ignored General Ali Kuli Khan's appointment and decided to promote Pervez Musharraf to four star rank and assigned duties over him.
Post retirement
Criticism to Pervez Musharraf
He is also very critical of Musharraf's book In the Line of Fire, where according to him, the author puts Ali Kuli Khan Khattak's image in a negative manner.
