Hamid Mir

Mir's father, Waris Mir, was also a columnist for Daily Jang and Mir's mother was Mumtaz Mir, who migrated to Pakistan from Jammu in the region of Jammu and Kashmir in 1947.

Hamid Mir (حامد میر; born 23 July 1966) is a Pakistani journalist, columnist and writer.

Mir initially worked as a journalist with Pakistani newspapers.

His father died on 9 July 1987 in Lahore and his mother died in 1993.

Hamid Mir studied at Government College University and University of Punjab.

Mir is married to Naheed Hamid, who worked with Pakistan television and for a private television channel for many years.

The couple has two children.

Mir joined the Daily Jang (Lahore) in 1987 and worked there as sub-editor, reporter, feature writer and edition in charge.

In 1990, Mir was abducted, beaten and driven to a house where his captors demanded to know his source for the critical story he wrote when then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was planning to dismiss the Bhutto government.

In 1994, he broke the submarines purchase scandal.

Some close friends of Asif Zardari (husband of then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto) were involved in that scandal, along with some Navy officials.

Mir lost his job from daily Jang the day his article was published.

In 1996, Mir became the editor of the Daily Pakistan in Islamabad, making him the youngest editor of any national Urdu newspaper in the history of Pakistani journalism.

He lost his job again in 1997, when he wrote an article in the Daily Pakistan about the alleged corruption of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Also on 25 December 1997, he launched Daily Ausaf (Islamabad) as founding editor.

Mir was the first Pakistani journalist to interview Osama bin Laden.

He first interviewed Bin Laden for the Daily Pakistan in March 1997, in a cave of Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan.

Mir interviewed Bin Laden for the second time for Ausaf in May 1998, in a hideout near the Kandahar International Airport.

Mir was the only journalist to interview Bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

He interviewed Bin Laden for the third time for Dawn and Ausaf on 8 November 2001, at an undisclosed location near Kabul.

Mir went to eastern Afghanistan, where he investigated the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora mountains in December 2001.

Mir visited the caves of bin Laden, during the American bombing.

He has hosted the political talk show Capital Talk on Geo News intermittently since 2002.

He writes columns for Urdu as well as English newspapers, both national and international.

He has been a contributor to the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post since June 2021.

He is well known for his stance against the dominance of the Establishment in Pakistan.

Having survived two assassination attempts, Mir has been banned from television three times, and has lost his job twice due to his stand for press freedom and human rights.

Born in Lahore to a journalistic family, Mir is the only journalist in the world to have interviewed Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks.

During his career, Mir has also interviewed various world leaders which includes former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, US Secretary of State John Kerry, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Prime Minister of United Kingdom Tony Blair, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, President of South Africa Nelson Mandela, President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, President of Palestine Yasser Arafat, Deputy Prime Minister of India L.K. Advani, President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, and President of Israel Shimon Peres.

A few of the notable Pakistani political figures which Hamid Mir has interviewed include Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, Asif Ali Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Imran Khan, Mir Zafaruallah Khan Jamali, and President Arif Alvi.

Mir has also interviewed actors such as Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan.

He was awarded with the civil award Hilal-i-Imtiaz for his work for Pakistan.

His two children and wife spent sometime outside of the country because of security issues in 2007.

For his war and conflict reporting, he was awarded SAARC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 in New Delhi.

Hamid Mir is regular participant in international seminars and conferences on security, human rights and press freedom.

He has delivered lectures at Harvard University, Yale University, University of Oxford, London School of Economics and University of California, Berkeley.

Hamid Mir's grandfather was Mir Abdul Aziz from Sialkot, who was a poet in Punjabi, Urdu and Persian.

In 2016, he was awarded the "Most Resilient Journalist Award" in The Hague by Free Press Unlimited.

In 2017, he was awarded the lifetime achievement award by former Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali, at Government College University Lahore, for his work as a news anchor.

Hamid Mir is the only journalist in South Asia to cover wars and conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Bosnia and Sri Lanka.