ISLAMABAD, 27 February 2008 — Pakistan’ Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani is set to replace the head of military intelligence. The director general of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Mian Nadeem Ijaz, will be replaced by Maj. Gen. Muhammad Asif.
This will be the first major reshuffle in the military since President Pervez Musharraf quit the army.
Musharraf, who took power as a general in 1999, stepped down as army chief in November to become a civilian president of the country, which has been ruled by the military for more than half of the 60 years since its independence.
Top military appointments in the country are always closely watched as Pakistan’s intelligence agencies have long held influence over successive governments as well as being accused of meddling in the affairs of neighboring Afghanistan and India.
Gen. Asif served as Pakistan’s defense attaché in Russia.
Gen. Ijaz, a close confidant of Musharraf, has worked as head of military intelligence (MI) for more than three years, the normal length of service.
MI and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are the Pakistani military’s two main security agencies.
A month before his retirement from the army, Musharraf appointed Lt. Gen. Nadeem Taj, a former head of military intelligence and his former military secretary, as director-general of ISI.
“Obviously, as time goes by, he (Kayani) will be appointing people of his choice, those who are professionally sound and also enjoy his confidence,” said Talat Masood, a retired general and security analyst. “At this time, these assignments are extremely vital for the reason that they are also facing internal insurgency as the greatest challenge,” he said.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan is a major non-NATO US ally. Its support is seen as crucial for the success of the Western military intervention in Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in tribal lands on the Afghan border.
Militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taleban have stepped up their campaign of attacks across Pakistan in recent months and hundreds of people have been killed. On Monday, the army’s top medical officer and seven other people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Rawalpindi, where the army headquarters is based.
Lt. Gen. Mushtaq Ahmed Baig was the most senior military officer killed by militants to date. Security agencies yesterday launched a joint investigation into the suicide bombing that killed the army’s surgeon general. A team comprising senior officials of the Federal Investigation Agency, the police and the army is probing the assassination of Gen. Baig, said Interior Secretary Kamal Shah.
— With input from agencies
