Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army | |
---|---|
پاک فوج کے کمانڈر انچیف | |
Ministry of Defence Army Secretariat-I at MoD [1] | |
Abbreviation | C-in-C |
Residence | Rawalpindi Cantonment |
Seat | General Headquarters Rawalpindi Cantonment in Punjab, Pakistan |
Nominator | Governor General of Pakistan, Prime Minister or President of Pakistan |
Appointer | Governor General of Pakistan, Prime Minister or President of Pakistan |
Term length | Not fixed |
Formation | 15 August 1947 |
First holder | Gen. Frank Messervy |
Final holder | Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan |
Abolished | 3 March 1972 |
Succession | Chief of Army Staff |
Unofficial names | Army chief |
Deputy | Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army |
The Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army (abbreviation: C-in-C of the Pakistan Army) was the professional head of the Pakistan Army from 1947 to 1972. [2] The C-in-C was directly responsible for commanding the army. It was an administrative position and the appointment holder had main operational command authority over the army. [3]
Direct appointments to the command of the Pakistan Army came from the British Army Council until 1951, when the first native Pakistani commander-in-chief (General Ayub Khan) was nominated and appointed by the Government of Pakistan. [4] [5]
The C-in-C designation was changed to 'Chief of Army Staff' in 1972; General Tikka Khan was the first person to hold the new title. Six generals have served as C-in-C, the first two of them were native British and the post's name was derived from the post of Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army. [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Prior to the Creation of Pakistan from the Partition of India on 14 August 1947, the senior generals of the British Indian Army were appointments made by the Army Council (1904) of the British Army. [11]
The supreme military commander's appointment was known as Commander-in-Chief, India who directly reported to the Governor-General of India who was also under the British monarchy. [12] Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck was the last Commander-in-Chief of the undivided British Indian Army who became the supreme commander of India and Pakistan on 15 August 1947 serving till November 30 of that year. [12]
Dominion of Pakistan was born on 14 August 1947 and its army was known as 'Royal Pakistan Army'; on 15 August British Indian Army's General Frank Messervy became the first C-in-C of the newly created Pakistan Army. General Ayub Khan was the first native Pakistani to hold the appointment on 17 January 1951. However, Ayub didn't hold the substantive rank of full general till 1957.
In 1969, when General Yahya Khan became President of Pakistan, Lieutenant General Abdul Hamid Khan was promoted to full General and was appointed as the 'Chief of Staff of the Army'. [8] On 20 March 1972, the commander-in-chief post was renamed as "Chief of Army Staff (COAS)" with Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan elevated to four star rank to be appointed as army's first chief of army staff; this renaming was done copying India's COAS appointment. [13]
The following table chronicles the appointees to the office of the Commander-in-Chief since the independence of Pakistan to 1972.
No. | Portrait | Commander-in-Chief | Took office | Left office | Time in office | Unit of Commission | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | General Sir Frank Walter Messervy KCSI , KBE , CB , DSO & Bar (1893–1974) | 15 August 1947 | 10 February 1948 | 179 days | 9th Hodson's Horse | The first commander-in-chief of the army who was in the acting rank of full general. | |
2 | General Sir Douglas David Gracey KCB , KCIE , CBE , MC & Bar (1894–1964) | 11 February 1948 | 16 January 1951 | 2 years, 339 days | 1st King George's Own Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment) | The last native British person to hold the C-in-C title, served as an acting full general like his predecessor. | |
3 | Field Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan NPk , HJ , HPk , MBE (1907–1974) | 17 January 1951 | 27 October 1958 | 7 years, 284 days | 5th Punjab Regiment | The first native Pakistani person to be the C-in-C and as a substantive full general to hold the appointment, also the first chief to become President of the country. He was a self promoted Field Marshal after becoming the President. [14] | |
4 | General Muhammad Musa HPk , HJ , HQA , MBE (1908–1991) | 27 October 1958 | 17 September 1966 | 7 years, 325 days | 4th Hazara Pioneers | C-in-C during the Indo-Pak war of 1965 and also the longest serving officer to hold the post. | |
5 | General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan HPk , HJ , SPk (1917–1980) | 18 September 1966 | 20 December 1971 | 5 years, 93 days | 11th Baloch Regiment | Second chief to serve as President of the country from 1969 to 1971. | |
6 | Lieutenant General Gul Hassan Khan SQA , SPk (1921–1999) | 20 December 1971 | 3 March 1972 | 74 days | 9th Frontier Force Regiment | Last C-in-C of the Pakistan Army, serving till 1972 in the rank of lieutenant general. |
The responsibility of the C-in-C was to perform as the chief commander of the army, he was responsible to make army and war policies along with other senior generals. He had the main command authority over the army. It was also the responsibility of the general to preside over the formation commanders meeting and any other meeting in the General Headquarters.
The C-in-Cs were assisted by Chiefs of Staff (COS), as prior to the birth of Pakistan, the GHQ Pakistan was an army command's HQ of the British Indian Army (the Northern Command, India) and there had been the appointment of the Chief of Staff under the command's commander, this trend continued in independent Pakistan's newly created army headquarters (GHQ). [15] The last Chief of Staff was General Abdul Hamid Khan, who served till 1971. Another noted chief of staff was Lieutenant General Nasir Ali Khan in 1950s. [15] [16]
During the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, there were only two Lt. Gens in the Army; Bakhtiar Rana, the Commander I Corps, and Altaf Qadri, who was on deputation to CENTO, Turkey, and a handful of Maj. Gens. [17]
During the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, there were two full generals and the number of Lt Gens reached 13; four were posted at the GHQ/CMLA HQ, one at the CENTO HQ in Ankara, Turkey, four were corps commanders, four were governors under martial law. General Yahya Khan was the President of Pakistan, General Abdul Hamid Khan was the de facto Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Lt Gen S.G.M.M. Peerzada was the PSO CMLA HQ in Rawalpindi, Lt Gen Gul Hassan Khan was the Chief of General Staff (CGS), and Lt Gen Khwaja Wasiuddin was the Master-General of Ordnance (MGO).The GHQ posts of QMG and AG were under the rank of Major-Generals. Lt Gen Muhammad Shariff was sent as the Permanent Representative to the CENTO HQ in Turkey. Army's Eastern Command was under Lt Gen A.A.K. Niazi, I Corps was under Lt Gen Irshad Ahmad Khan, II Corps was under Lt Gen Tikka Khan, IV Corps was under Lt Gen Bahadur Sher. On the other hand, the governor of Punjab was Lt Gen Attiqur Rahman, the governor of Sindh was Lt Gen Rakhman Gul, the governor of NWFP was Lt Gen K.M. Azhar, and the governor of Balochistan was Lt Gen Riaz Hussain.
Lieutenant General Gul Hassan Khan known secretly as George, was a three-star rank Pakistan Army general and diplomat who served as the 6th and last Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army, serving from 20 December 1971 until 3 March 1972, the shortest tenure. Gul Hassan resigned along with Abdur Rahim Khan after they refused Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's request to use their forces to end a police strike protesting for a pay increase against Bhutto's government.
Tikka Khan was a Pakistani military officer who served as the first chief of the army staff from 1972 to 1976. Along with Yahya Khan, he is considered a chief architect of the 1971 Bangladesh genocide which according to independent researchers led to the deaths of 300,000 to 500,000 people.
General Asif Nawaz Janjua NI(M), HI(M), SBt, psc, was a senior officer of the Pakistan Army who served as the fourth chief of army staff from 16 August 1991 until his death from arsenic poisoning. His family commissioned a private test on hair from his brush, which was conducted in the United States. The test registered high levels of arsenic. As a result, his body was exhumed, and an autopsy was conducted by French, British, and American doctors. The cause of death was determined to be a heart attack, which can also be caused by exposure to low or mild levels of arsenic. Benazir Bhutto also believed he was murdered by political opponents, namely Nawaz Sharif.
Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi commonly known as General Niazi was a Pakistani military officer. During the Bangladesh Liberation War and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, he commanded the Pakistani Eastern Command in East Pakistan. he signed the instrument of surrender as on 16 December 1971 his forces had to surrender to the Indian Army's Eastern Command's commander Lieutenant General Jagjit Singh Aurora by the order of the then President of Pakistan Yahya Khan.
Major General Akbar Khan, DSO (1912–1993) was a decorated officer of the British Indian Army and later Pakistan Army. He commanded the Kashmiri rebels and Pashtun irregulars in the First Kashmir War under the pseudonym 'General Tariq'. In 1951, he was convicted of an attempted coup that came to be known as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy, and served a five-year prison sentence. Later he served as the Chief of National Security under prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Under his guidance, the Army quelled the Baloch Insurgency during the early mid-1970s.
Major General Aboobaker Osman MithaHJ SQA TPk, popularized as A.O. Mitha, was a Pakistan Army general who is considered a legend in the Pakistan Army, and a "stay behind" conceptual founder of Special Services Group (SSG). With the help from the United States' Special Forces, he created the special forces unit in Cherat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 1956.
The Pakistan Army, commonly known as the Pak Army is the land service branch and the largest component of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The president of Pakistan is the supreme commander of the army. The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), a four-star general, commands the army. The Army was established in August 1947 after Pakistan gained independence from the United Kingdom. According to statistics provided by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in 2024, the Pakistan Army has approximately 560,000 active duty personnel, supported by the Pakistan Army Reserve, the National Guard and the Civil Armed Forces. Pakistan Army is the sixth-largest army of the world and the largest of the Muslim world.
Muhammad Ataul Gani Osmani, was a Bengali military leader. Osmani's career spanned five decades, beginning with service in the British Indian Army in 1939. He fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II. After the partition of India in 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army and served in the East Bengal Regiment, retiring as a colonel in 1967. Osmani joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in 1971 as the commander-in-chief of the nascent Bangladesh Forces. Regarded as the founder of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, Osmani retired as a four-star general from the Bangladesh Army in 1972.
General Muhammad Musa Khan was a Pakistani senior military officer who served as the 4th Commander-in-Chief of Pakistan Army from 1958 to 1966, under president Ayub Khan. Following his tenure as C-in-C of the Army, he later became a politician.
Field Marshal Kodandera Madappa Cariappa, was an Indian military officer and diplomat who was the Indian Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Indian Army. He led Indian forces on the Western Front during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. He was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army in 1949. He is one of only two Indian Army officers to hold the five-star rank of Field Marshal; the other being Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw.
General Muhammad Aziz KhanNI(M) HI(M) SBt TBt, best known as Aziz Khan, is a retired Pakistani four-star rank army general who served as the 11th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, appointed in October 2001 until his retirement in 2005.
General Khawaja Ziauddin Abbasi, also known as Ziauddin Butt, is a retired four-star rank army general in the Pakistan Army, who served as the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), for few hours, until Chairman joint chiefs General Pervez Musharraf reasserted the command and control of the military despite his termination on 12 October 1999.
The II Corps is a field corps of the Pakistan Army headquartered in Multan Cantonment, Punjab in Pakistan. It is one the ten maneuver formation of the Pakistani military which has seen deployments against the Indian Army in 1971 towards east and the Afghan war to enforce national defenses in west of Pakistan.
Mohammad Iqbal KhanNI(M) HI(M) SI(M) SBt (1924–2000) was a senior general in the Pakistan Army who served as the third Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee from being appointed in 1980 until 1984.
General Muhammad ShariffNI(M) SPk SI(M) was a senior Pakistan Army general who was the first Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, serving in this post from 1976 until tendering his resignation in 1977 over the disagreement with the military takeover of the civilian government by the Pakistani military.
The Eastern Command of the Pakistan Army was a corps-sized military formation headed by a lieutenant-general, who was designated the Commander Eastern Command. After the partition of India by United Kingdom, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was divided into two territories separated by 1,000 miles (1,600 km). Most of the assets of the Pakistan armed forces were stationed in West Pakistan; the role of the Pakistan armed forces in East Pakistan was to hold that part of the country until the Pakistani forces defeated India in the west. The Pakistan Army created the Eastern Command, with one commander in the rank of Lieutenant General responsible for the command. The armed forces, had drawn up a plan to defend Dhaka by concentrating all their forces along the Dhaka Bowl.
Western Command is a Command-level formation of the Indian Army. It was formed in 1920. It was disbanded following its demotion to an independent district and eventual merge with Northern Command to form the North-western Army. It was re-raised in 1947 following the transfer of Northern Command HQ to Pakistan. Until 1972, it was responsible for India's border with Pakistan in the North and West and the Chinese border in the North. The Command HQ is located at Chandimandir, Haryana, about 5 km east of Chandigarh.
Lieutenant General Agha Ali Ibrahim Akram better known as A. I. Akram was a three-star rank general, military strategist, author, historian, diplomat, and one of Pakistan's most influential soldier-scholars. In the 1980s, Akram was a well-known defence expert and defence analyst. Akram's most popular work was his biography of Khalid ibn al-Walid, The Sword of Allah which Akram published while serving in the Pakistan Army. For several years. it was compulsory reading in the Pakistan Army for admission into the Command and Staff College Quetta and has been on the leadership syllabus in the Malaysian Army. Akram was once seen as a close confidant of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and his conceptual adviser.
Ghulam Jilani KhanHI(M) SBt was a senior general of the Pakistan Army who served as the 14th Governor of Punjab Province and 11th Defence Secretary of Pakistan in the military government of President General Zia-ul-Haq.
The General Headquarters is the headquarters of the Pakistan Army, located in the Chaklala at the vicinity of Rawalpindi, adjacent to the Joint Staff Headquarters.