 "Nawaz Sharif appoints Qamar Javed Bajwa as new Pak army chief")
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday picked Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa to replace outgoing army chief Raheel Sharif, a popular military leader credited for improving security and driving back Islamist militant groups, his spokesman said.
The army chief is arguably the most powerful person in Pakistan, with the military having ruled the country for more than half its 69-year history since independence from Britain.
Bajwa will likely take charge of the world’s sixth-largest army by troop numbers in a formal handover on November 29, when the current chief of army staff formally retires.
The appointment of Bajwa is expected to help reset fraught relations between the military and the civilian government in a nuclear-armed nation of 190 million people.
Lieutenant General Zubair Hayat has, meanwhile, been appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee. Hayat was serving as chief of general staff prior to his present appointment.
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“On the advice of Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, President Mamnoon Hussain has approved the promotion of Lieutenant General Zubair Mehmood Hayat and Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa,” the prime minister’s office said.
Bajwa is a career infantry officer from the Baloch Regiment. Before him, there have been three army chiefs from the Baloch Regiment: Gen Yahya Khan, Gen Aslam Beg and Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
Bajwa, who is from Pakistan Military Academy’s 62nd long course, is at present serving at the General Headquarters (GHQ) at Rawalpindi as Inspector General of Training and Evaluation – a position Sharif also held before becoming army chief.
He has commanded 10 Corps, which is the Pakistan army’s biggest and most important corps. All of the country’s defence installations, including the GHQ, which are the headquarters of the Pakistan army, air headquarters and navel headquarters, are the responsibility of the commander of 10 Corps. So is the Prime Minister Secretariat, which is the official residence and principle workplace of the prime minister of Pakistan, and government security.
Earlier, Bajwa served as lieutenant colonel in 10 Corps, which is also responsible for the area along the Line of Control (LoC).
While he has wide-ranging experience in handling affairs related to Kashmir, he is said to believe that the bigger threat to Pakistan is terrorism rather than India.
As brigade commander, he served on a United Nations peace mission in Congo alongside former Indian army chief Bikram Singh. And, he was also the commandant of the Infantry School in Quetta.
Besides controlling security, the Pakistan army operates a vast business empire in the country and often dictates key areas of Pakistan’s foreign policy, including relations with historic foe India and its western neighbour Afghanistan.
Bajwa’s appointment becomes significant in a time when the situation on the border with India is tense. With Pakistan military is also engaged in intense counter-terrorism operations, his extensive experience could prove useful.
Sharif, 60, meanwhile, becomes the first army chief in over 20 years to step down on time. Before him, several military leaders had got extensions to their three-year terms.
