When Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa took over from Raheel Sharif, he inherited what was a somewhat lukewarm situation with respect to the security situation in the country and relations with the civilian leadership. Zarb-e-Azb had resulted in a significant drop in terrorism, and with the exception of the whole Dawn leaks episode under the previous army chief, things seemed quite mum on the civ-mil side.
That calmness, however, was short lived. A spate of terror attacks across major cities of the country soon after Bajwa took over revealed the vulnerabilities that existed within the intelligence and security apparatus of the country. One of the deadliest of the attacks took place in front of the Punjab Assembly, at Charing Cross, taking out 18 people, among them senior Punjab Police officers as well.
Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad was Immediately launched by Bajwa, with the primary aim to take out terrorist sleeper cells. Essentially, it is the continuation of Zarb-e-Azb and proves that there can be no let-up in the process of eliminating the omnipresent threat of terrorism in the country; this fight is long and hard and a lot still remains to be done.
On the political front, the first challenge Bajwa faced was the Dawn leaks issue, something that his predecessor had pushed to evolve into a full blow civ-mil tiff. The report, written by retired judge Aamer Raza Khan, irked the military leadership forcing the DG ISPR to respond by tweeting that it is “incomplete” and “rejected”.
What ensued was a standoff between Nawaz, who demanded the tweet be retracted, and COAS Bajwa who was only just settling in. The army blinked first and the tweet was retracted by Ghafoor much to the dislike of most of the Corps Commanders at the time.
Soon after his disqualification, and to an extent during his trial as well, Nawaz Sharif had started badmouthing the army. The army, in turn, replied in a less overt manner, expressing its ‘apprehensions’ over the condition of the economy, in particular the ‘sky-high debt’ that is largely attributable to the PML-N’s economic team under Nawaz.
Most recently, Bajwa played a role in settling the Faizabad sit-in issue by negotiating a settlement between the protesters and the government. In the process, the egotistical and reluctant interior minister Ahsan Iqbal gave in to virtually all of the demands of the bigoted zealots.
Bajwa, by refusing to deploy the 111 brigade that would have used force, made the army’s role in the entire episode controversial and questionable, raising concerns about how the situation came to be and deteriorated the way it did, only to be salvaged by him as a mediator.
On the foreign policy front, the new chief has been active, as evidenced by his presence in most senior level meetings with the United States and Afghanistan. It remains to be seen how he deals with the emerging quagmire of keeping Iran happy while Pakistan is part of the Sunni-only grand Muslim alliance being headed by Saudi Arabia.
