Durrani was born in 1941 in Rawalpindi, British India. From 1957 to 1959, he attended the Government College, now a university, where he did his degree in Bachelor of Science. He joined the Pakistan Army in 1959. and subsequently joined the Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul. In 1960, he was commissioned as second lieutenant in the army as a gunner officer. As a captain he participated in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, where he commanded his company. In 1968, he was promoted to major. He also took part in the 1971 war against India. Durrani has been in key posts, including an instructorship at the officers' academy and later at the Command and Staff College, Quetta, as Director General of Military Intelligence from 1988 to 1989; Director General of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence from 1990 to 1991, Inspector General Training and Evaluation at the General Headquarters and Commandant at the National Defence College. Durrani is a graduate from the General Staff Academy, Germany. He has also been Pakistan's military attaché to Germany from 1980 to 1984. After retiring from the army, he was Pakistan's ambassador to Germany and Saudi Arabia. In 1994, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accused Durrani and Mirza Aslam Beg of wanting to sell "heroin to pay for the country's covert military operations in early 1991." In 2008, Durrani acknowledged "distributing money to the alliance against Benazir Bhutto" in the 1993 Pakistani general election. In 2015, Durrani told the press it was “probable” the Pakistani government knew Osama bin Laden’s location and “the idea was that at the right time, his location would be revealed. And the right time would have been when you can get the necessary quid pro quo.”
''The Spy Chronicles''
In 2018, he co-authored with A. S. Dulat, former head of the Research and Analysis Wing. He was supposed to attend the book release with Dulat in India, but the Indian government denied him a visa. Subsequently, he received a summons to appear before General Headquarters over the book and was placed on the Exit Control List. Former Prime Minister of PakistanNawaz Sharif demanded that the National Security Committee should discuss the book. However, in October 2018, Asad Durrani's lawyer said they had not received any notice of an inquiry and sought the removal of Asad Durrani's name from the Exit Control List. Shazar Shafat, a security analyst, suggests two reasons in South Asian Voices as to why Asad Durrani may be facing the backlash. The first is related to Durrani's comments on Akhand Bharat in the book and the second is in relation to comments on Kulbhushan Jadhav. However, a report by CNN found that the book was freely available in Pakistan and that the Pakistani governments "overreaction", according to Hassan Askari Rizvi and other defence analysts, may be because Durrani did not get prior permissions for such a book. On 22 February 2019, Asad Durrani was found guilty of violating Pakistan's Military Code of Conduct for co-writing the book. Asad Durrani's pension and other allowances have been withdrawn and it is yet to be decided if he should be taken off the Exit Control List or not.
