Mansoor Ijaz

Mansoor Ijaz (born 1961) is an American businessman of Pakistani ancestry. He is an investment banker and media commentator, mostly in relation to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York investment partnership since 1990 that includes retired General James Alan Abrahamson, former director of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. Ijaz has had ties to former CIA Director James Woolsey.


He was born in Tallahassee, Florida and grew up on a farm in rural Virginia. Ijaz received his bachelor's degree in nuclear physics from the University of Virginia in 1983 and master's degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology  in 1985, where he was trained as a neural sciences engineer in the Harvard Medical School-MIT Medical Engineering Medical Physics Program. His father, Dr. Mujaddid Ahmad Ijaz, was a theoretical physicist who played a major role in Pakistan's nuclear detterence development throughout 1970s and 1980s, and was a pioneering figure in the designing of the weapons.

Ijaz developed CARAT, a currency, interest rate and equity risk management system. He started his own investment firm in 1990. Away from Crescent's daily business affairs, Ijaz serves on the College Foundation Board of Trustees at the University of Virginia and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mansoor Ijaz's mother Dr. Lubna Razia Ijaz spent about ten years in Islamabad. First three years in the Prime-Ministers Secretariat as part of Alternate Energy Development Board (AEDB), as Solar Energy Expert. Later when AEDB learnt about her, she moved out and went to Mid-Punjab assisting Fauji Foundation helping some Girls School (near Faisalabad). Prof. Dr. Lubna Razia Ijaz left Virginia Tech and opted for an early retirement from the University to carry out socio-economic upliftment programs for the betterment of the people in Pakistan. According to a newspaper she is the main character behind the memogate that pit Pakistan’s civil and military establishment against each other.

The former military ruler Pervez Musharraf was prepared to appoint Razia as his advisor on Science and Technology but avoided doing so after intelligence agencies warned him about Razia’s suspicious activities related to Ahmadia Jamat called Qadiani Jamat and considered a non-Muslim minority in Pakistan.

Nazir Hussain father of Lubna Razia and his father-in-law Ismael Ijaz were among the 313 followers of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed Qadiyani. Ijaz’s family  received special importance in the US as his parents had been working at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. In 1995  Ijaz had said it was his power of information which earned him so much importance in the US. The Washington Post, a US newspaper had dubbed him a pride of America as he imparted secret information to US officials regarding Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Lubna Razia also had relations with Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and former president Farooq Ahmed Leghari. In 1995, the Pakistani-American had written a letter to Benazir Bhutto then prime minister of Pakistan that Ali Quli Khan, Pakistan’s intelligence chief, was conspiring to topple her government. He also claimed to have met with Syed Salahuddin, commander of Hizbul Mujahedeen, a militant organization battling in Kashmir for valley’s liberation from India’s occupation. There are speculations that Mansoor Ijaz’s mother has been behind every idea of Mansoor Ijaz.

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