PM Nawaz Sharif has appointed Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa as the sixteenth Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan Army.
A career infantry officer belonging to the Baloch Regiment, Lieutenant General Bajwa has been appointed as the new Chief of Army Staff, while Lieutenant General Zubair Hayat has been appointed the Chief of Joint Staff Committee.
Both generals would take up their new posts from Tuesday, the day the current army COAS General Raheel Sharif retires.
Lt Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa and Lt Gen Zubair Hayat will be promoted to the rank of four-star generals.
Both Bajwa and Hayat are from the Pakistan Military Academy’s 62nd long course but have had different career trajectories.
Previously, serving at the General Headquarters as Inspector General of Training and Evaluation – the position current COAS held before becoming army chief – Lieutenant General Bajwa has commanded the 10 Corps, the army’s largest, which is responsible for the area along the Line of Control.
Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa has extensive experience of handling affairs in Kashmir and the northern areas of the country. As a major general, he led the Force Command Northern Areas. He also served in the 10 Corps as a lieutenant colonel, where he was GSO.
Despite his extensive involvement with Kashmir and northern areas, he is said to consider extremism a bigger threat to the country than India.
Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa has served with a UN mission in Congo as a brigade commander alongside former Indian army chief Gen Bikram Singh, who was also there as a division commander.
His military colleagues say he is not attention-seeking and remains well-connected with his troops.