General Qamar Bajwa to take command of army on Tuesday

Above all, even if Bajwa does resolve to prioritize internal militancy over tensions with India in Kashmir and along the worldwide boundary, the Pakistani military has long internalized a culture of seeing India as the country’s primary threat and the organization’s very raison d’etre.

In addition to managing tensions with India, Bajwa is likely to continue his predecessor’s policy of fighting domestic jihadi groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban.

The appointment ended months of speculation on the future of General Sharif, who is not related to the prime minister.

“The President, on the advice of the Prime Minister, has promoted Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa to the rank of full general and appointed him as the chief of army staff”, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s office told The Telegraph in reply to a question.

Lieutenant General Bajwa was commissioned in 16 Baloch Regiment on October 24, 1980.

The most obvious man dropped while making the two key appointments by Prime Minister Sharif is Lt Gen Ishfaq Nadeem Ahmed who was serving Multan Corps Commander.

The statement came just a day after Gen Bajwa was selected as the country’s new Chief of Army Staff (COAS).

In his first comments after assuming charge of the country’s army, Bajwa called for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute for the sake of regional stability. Both sides accuse each other of instigating the shelling.

Bajwa has extensive experience of dealing with affairs related to Kashmir and the northern areas of Pakistan.

“India is the one attacking our soldiers, killing civilians too, at the LoC”.

Earlier this year, mysterious banners calling on Gen Sharif to “take over” the government popped up in various cities across the country. “He is indeed a firm opponent of extremism and terrorism”. Bajwa also served as commander for the 10 Corps, seen as the army’s most elite corps.

As he continued to take the line of denying India conducted any surgical strikes in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, he dramatised the Pakistan army’s capabilities. The post of the army chief is the most powerful in Pakistan.

Bajwa will face challenges ranging from an increasingly hostile India to the conflict in Afghanistan, growing links between homegrown militants and Islamic State jihadis, and blowback from a Trump presidency.

The army chief received his military commission in 1976 and studied military leadership in Germany, Canada and Britain.