WHO IS GENERAL ASIM MUNIR, PAKISTAN'S ARMY CHIEF?

Lt. Gen. Asim Munir's rise to power in Pakistan amid political turmoil and military tensions with India

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On April 17, while speaking at a gathering of expatriates in Islamabad, Gen. Asim Munir, Pakistan's army chief, said "we are different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life", invoking the two-nation theory. "No matter where you live, remember - your roots lie in a high civilisation, noble ideology, and proud identity." He added that Kashmir "will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it, we will not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their historical struggle". Five days later, armed terrorists gunned down 26 Indians, mostly civilian tourists, in Kashmir's Pahalgam. The Resistance Front, which India believes is a front of Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, immediately claimed responsibility (it later denied any role in the killing). On May 7, India launched Operation Sindoor, an air strike at terror sites inside Pakistan. Pakistan responded with more fire, escalating the showdown, leading to both sides launching missile attacks. Is this what Gen. Munir wanted?

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Not long before becoming the most powerful man in Pakistan, Lieutenant-General Asim Munir was the shortest-serving head of the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), the spy agency. He was appointed the ISI head in October 2018 by the Army chief, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa. But eight months later, he was replaced with Lt. Gen. Faiz Hamid on the insistence of then-Prime Minister Imran Khan. The cricketer-turned-politician, who came to power a few months earlier, was still enjoying warm ties with the military establishment. While there was no official word on why the ISI chief was fired, an alleged audio clip of Aleem Khan, a former leader of Mr. Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, surfaced earlier in 2022 in which he accused the former Prime Minister of sacking Lt. Gen. Munir for "exposing corruption" of his wife, Bushra Bibi.

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