Source : NEW INDIAN EXPRESS NEWS
NEW DELHI: Amidst the ongoing tensions with India, the Pakistan Army got its second Field Marshal on Tuesday after the Cabinet led by Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif took the decision to promote Army chief General Asim Munir. He follows in the footsteps of General Ayub Khan who had self-promoted himself in 1959 when he was the country’s President.
The move comes in the wake of Operation Sindoor launched by India in response to the killing of 26 civilians in a terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22. The Indian Air Force and Indian Army jointly struck nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7. While Pakistan tried to retaliate with missiles and drones, India’s air defences brought them down and the IAF also struck multiple air bases including those in Nur Khan, Sargodha and Rahim Yar Khan.
The rank of Field Marshal is usually conferred upon an officer with an impeccable service record. In the case of Munir, however, the then Prime Minister Imran Khan had removed him as the director general of the powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) nine months after he took over.
Born in 1968, Munir graduated from the Pakistan Officers Training School in 1986 and was awarded the Sword of Honour as the best cadet of his batch and became the 11th Army chief on November 29, 2022, replacing General Qamar Javed Bajwa. He had two major stints with the powerful intelligence directorate of the Pakistan Army, being director of military intelligence in 2016 and taking over as the director general of the ISI in 2018.
His ISI tenure was truncated after his relations with then PM Imran Khan, who is now in jail, soured. When Imran was arrested, he had publicly implicated Munir for playing a role in his arrest. Imran’s successor Shehbaz Sharif chose Munir as the Pakistan Army chief. Imran had tried to spike Munir’s appointment as army chief and lobbied to install his trusted officer Gen Faiz Hameed in the powerful seat instead.
SOURCE :- NEW INDIAN EXPRESS
