November 27, 2013
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday named Lieutenant General Raheel Sharif as its new army chief, taking over from the retiring General Ashfaq Kayani.
November 27, 2013
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday named Lieutenant General Raheel Sharif as its new army chief, taking over from the retiring General Ashfaq Kayani.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrives for the official photograph of the Commonwealth heads of states during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo November 15, 2013.
The chief of the army staff is widely regarded as the most powerful man in the nuclear-armed nation, which has seen three periods of military rule and where the armed forces still exert great influence.
The stakes could not be higher. The last time Sharif chose an army chief, he was toppled by the same general, Pervez Musharraf, a year later. Musharraf held power for nearly a decade from 1999 until the restoration of civilian rule.
The United States, which views Pakistani cooperation as vital to its strategy in neighboring Afghanistan, will be watching closely, hoping for continuity before most foreign troops pull out of Afghanistan next year.
CHANGING ATTITUDE
One of Sharif's pledges in the run-up to his May election victory was to improve ties with old rival India.
Clashes between the two armies in the disputed Kashmir region just weeks after the vote put paid to that, for the time being at least, and Sharif will need to gain the support of Kayani's successor to make any progress on that front.
At home, the army has been wary of another Sharif campaign promise to open talks with Pakistani Taliban militants, battling the state since 2007 to impose their vision of Islamist rule.
On the broader, decades-old issue of Pakistan's army using militant groups to further objectives in Afghanistan and in confronting India, Western officials believe that under Kayani the army's attitudes have been changing, largely because of the rise of the Pakistani Taliban.
Western officials believe that Kayani has been instrumental in pushing for negotiated settlements with insurgents on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.
They'll be hoping that trend continues under his successor.
"Sharif can't afford to pick a wild card right now," a retired Pakistani general told Reuters. "He knows full well that this is not a time for adventurism or any wild experiments."
Courtesy: Reuters
