ASIM MUNIR JIHADI GENERAL

The all-powerful chief of the Pakistan army is certainly not a man to be trifled with. But he just might have overplayed his hand with the terror attack on Pahalgam

- By RAJ CHENGAPPA

The Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir is not just in the eye of the storm clouding the subcontinent, he is the storm himself. It is no coincidence that he was the head of the notorious Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or the ISI, when it orchestrated the vicious Pulwama terror attack that saw the deaths of 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force on February 16, 2019. Six years on, Munir, now de facto supremo of Pakistan, is once again in India's crosshairs as the alleged mastermind of the Pahalgam terror attack in which 25 tourists and one local were gunned down in Kashmir's alpine haven on April 22. As the Modi government readies a military riposte to the worst civilian massacre in the Valley in two decades, it must not underestimate the guile of Asim Munir.

Those who have done so in the past have learnt their lesson the hard way. Among them was Imran Khan who, as Pakistan's prime minister, cleared Munir's appointment as ISI chief in 2018, only to sack him nine months later, apparently because Munir was bold enough to brief him about the alleged corrupt dealings of his wife, Bushra Bibi. Munir never forgave Imran for the humiliation of being possibly the shortest-serving ISI chief and bided his time to hit back. The opportunity came after Imran was deposed in an army-engineered 'parliamentary coup' in April 2022, and Munir, backed by a ruling coalition opposed to Imran, became the army chief that November. Months later, Munir had Imran jailed on multiple charges of corruption that saw the former prime minister sentenced to 14 years in prison early this year.

Decoding Asim Munir