The appointment of the brand new chief had develop into extra contentious than at some other time within the final three many years of the nation’s troubled military-civilian relations. The announcement ends months of hypothesis on whether or not Bajwa would search one other extension. But it might not finish Pakistan’s political uncertainty.

Asim Munir, Hafiz-e-Koran

Lt Gen Munir, who graduated in 1986 from the Officers Training School, Mangla, belongs to the Frontier Force Regiment, one of many six infantry regiments of the Pakistan Army. At current, he’s the QuarterMaster General at GHQ, Rawalpindi.

Munir is claimed to be near Bajwa, with whom he labored each as Director-General Military Intelligence from December 2016 to October 2018, and later as Director-General Inter Services Intelligence from October 2018 to June 2019.

Earlier in his profession, he commanded a brigade of the Force Command Northern Areas, a element of X Corps, at a time when Bajwa was the corps commander.

He is reported to be an “outstanding officer” and was just lately described by the author Shuja Nawaz (Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within), as “a straight arrow”.

Munir is essentially the most senior normal within the current crop of three star officers.

He was earlier not thought-about to be within the race for the highest job as his four-year tenure as Lt General was ending on November 27, and he was set to retire two days earlier than Bajwa’s tenure ends. But that minor hurdle has develop into irrelevant as his appointment as chief offers him a 3 yr tenure.

It can be uncommon for somebody who has served as ISI chief to develop into the Army chief. General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was Army chief from 2008 to 2013 is maybe the one different. Munir can be one in all solely three different officers to have headed each MI and ISI, the opposite two being Lt Gen Asad Durrani and Lt Gen Hamid Gul.

Munir served in Saudi Arabia within the diplomatic put up of defence attache. Unlike many others of senior rank within the Pakistan Army, he doesn’t appear to have had any publicity to both American or British coaching at any level in his profession. While he was a colonel, Munir was bestowed the title of Hafiz-e-Koran, that’s, he has memorised and may recite the holy ebook nearly completely.

“Munir is the culmination of changes that Zia-ul-Haq set in motion as a promoter of overt religiosity in the Army,” mentioned Ramanathan Kumar, who headed the Pakistan desk at R&AW from 2015 till he retired in 2020.

Rana Banerjee, who additionally led the Pakistan desk at R&AW earlier, mentioned Munir was unlikely to be a fundamentalist regardless of his non secular mindedness.

Newly appointed Army Chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, left, meets with Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. (Pakistan’s Prime Minister Office through AP)

Crossed swords with Imran

Munir’s eight-month tenure as Director ISI was the shortest ever for any officer in that put up. Although no causes have been formally given for his abrupt switch, it was broadly recognized that Bajwa had acceded to then Prime Minister Imran Khan’s demand to take away him. At the time, the COAS and Khan have been nonetheless on pleasant phrases.

Munir’s fault: he had apparently alleged to Khan that his spouse Bushra Bibi, also referred to as Pinky, and her household have been on the take.

This is why when Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his brother, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif — who has lived in self-exile in London since early 2020, and whom the PM consults on all points pertaining to the federal government — mentioned the “seniority principle” as laid down within the Constitution could be the one consider figuring out the following chief, alarm bells rang for Khan.

Even although Nawaz Sharif had appointed his “own man” as chief overlooking seniority 3 times, the Sharif brothers’ sudden fondness for the seniority precept pointed in Munir’s path.

Khan’s push for a “consensus” candidate as Army chief failed. And considerations that he would use President Arif Alvi, who belongs to his celebration, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, to sit down on the Cabinet abstract of the appointment, on which the presidential signature is a formality however nonetheless, a constitutional requirement, didn’t come true. A PTI press launch sounded conciliatory even because it made the demand for an early election.

But the Khan-Munir tensions is probably not buried but, solely postponed for one more day.

Newly appointed Pakistan’s Army Chief, Gen. Syed Asim Munir, proper, meets with President Arif Alvi, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. (AP/PTI Photo)

Challenges earlier than Munir

In his farewell handle, Bajwa reiterated that the Pakistan Army, which had “entered” politics for 75 years, must make a clear break from the previous.

“A serious purpose for (the criticism of the Army) is the Army’s interference in politics for the final 70 years which is unconstitutional.

“This is why in February last year the Army, after great deliberation, decided that it would never interfere in any political matter. I assure you we are strictly adamant on this and will remain so.”

Will Munir rise to the bar set for him by Bajwa and alter Pakistan’s continual civil-military imbalance to favour civilians?

As head of the world’s sixth largest military, and of Pakistan’s most “powerful” establishment, Munir’s first process will probably be to unite the Army behind his management, and cement the cracks between the pro- and anti-Imran Khan factions inside.

And so long as politicians look to the Army for assist, it is going to stay the ultimate arbiter.

If Khan continues to be bent on urgent his demand for a fast election, Munir could also be compelled, as early as his first week in workplace, to mediate between the previous PM and the Sharif authorities to resolve the political standoff.

Or, he might determine to remain “neutral” — that’s, stand behind the federal government which doesn’t need elections till they’re due subsequent yr, allowing it to place in place a measure of financial stability with the assistance of the IMF bailout package deal, and justify the robust and unpopular measures that it has needed to take.

Also anticipated are calls for for investigating Bajwa after current disclosures concerning the sudden improve within the household riches. The Army has by no means allowed such investigations when related allegations have been levelled towards its personal previously, and Munir will not be prone to break from that observe.

Pakistan’s Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa arrives for a navy parade to mark Pakistan National Day in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File)

The new chief and India

The new chief was heading the ISI when the Pulwama bombing happened in February 2019. In the Indian Air Force motion and the PAF retaliation that adopted, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval is reported to have spoken to Munir to safe the discharge of fighter pilot Abhindandan Varthaman, who was captured when his MiG fighter jet was downed in PoK. Despite his closeness to Bajwa, it’s not recognized if Munir shares his predecessor’s views on “geo-economics” and normalising relations with India.

Banerjee instructed The Indian Express that given the interior atmosphere, “Munir cannot afford to be seen as going soft on India, he will be a hardline chief.” At the identical time, he mentioned, the 2003 LoC ceasefire, which was renewed in February 2021, and has been strictly noticed, is in no hazard of falling aside because it fits Pakistan as a lot because it does India at the moment.

Kumar, who headed the Pakistan desk throughout the Pulwama assault, mentioned Munir could be the primary “mullah general” to develop into chief, cautioning that it was throughout the tenure of a equally “religiously oriented” Javed Nasir as ISI chief that the 1993 Mumbai assaults happened.

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Three years earlier, Zahirul Islam Abbasi, then a brigadier and a Tablighi follower, had been faraway from his command within the Kargil space for making an unauthorised foray into the Indian facet, which led to a “fiasco” with many males misplaced.

The Indian expertise of getting religiously minded males in high positions within the Pakistan Army had thus “not been good”, mentioned Kumar, including although that “another aspect to this” was that such generals “are also best suited for de-radicalisation since extremists listen to them, and thus this could be a double-edged sword in the India-Pakistan context”.