Lt. General Qamar Javed Bajwa has been appointed as the new Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan.
Lt. General Zubair Hayat has been appointed as the new Chairman Joint Chief of Staff committee. He was the senior most of the contenders but has been superseded by Lt. General Bajwa.
General Bajwa will replace the outgoing Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif during a change of guard ceremony on November 29.
Both generals have been promoted to the rank of four-star generals, and will formally take their posts after the retirement of General Raheel Sharif.
Qamar Javed Bajwa is currently Inspector General of the Training and Evaluation branch at General Headquarters. He was commissioned to the Baloch Regiment in 1980.
Three previously army chiefs General Yahya Khan, General Miza Aslam Beg, and General Ashfaq Pevez Kiyani also belonged to the Baloch Regiment.
He is a graduate of the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College, Toronto, Canada, The Naval Post Graduate University, California and the National Defence University, Islamabad.
Bajwa served as Chief of Staff at Corps X in Rawalpindi and has also commanded formation division in Northern Areas. He has also commanded a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo.
He also served in Corps X as lieutenant colonel, where he was the General Staff Officer. He was awarded Hilal-i-Imtiaz (Military) in 2011. He has also remained in command of the Infantry School in Quetta.
The others contenders were Bahawalpur Corps Commander Lt Gen Javed Iqbal Ramday, and Multan Corps Commander Lt Gen Ishfaq Nadeem.
The decision was made after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif returned from a visit to Turkmenistan. He had received a summary from the Ministry of Defence and held informal consultations of the matter.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has separate meeting with the incoming Chief of Army Staff, and Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee at the PM House. The premier congratulated both on the appointments to the top military positions.
