Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has picked Lieutenant General Asim Munir to succeed outgoing army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.
The selection, which caps weeks of speculation, is now pending the president’s approval.
Profile:
Lt Gen Munir entered the service via the Officers Training School program in Mangla, and was commissioned into the Frontier Force Regiment.
He has been a close aide of Gen Bajwa ever since he commanded troops in the Force Command Northern Areas as a brigadier under the outgoing army chief, who was then Commander X Corps.
Lt Gen Munir was later appointed Military Intelligence director general in early 2017, and in October next year was made the Inter-Services Intelligence chief.
However, his stint as the top intelligence officer turned out to be the shortest ever, as he was replaced by Lt Gen Faiz Hamid within eight months, on the insistence of then-PM Imran Khan.
He was posted as Gujranwala Corps commander, a position he held for two years, before being moved to the General Headquarters as the quartermaster general.
