Kayani, Pasha on the way out?

Dec 27, 2011 - Shafqat Ali |

Islamabad

Tags:

Ashfaq Parvez Kayani

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani are “seriously contemplating” removal of powerful army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

“The government is considering removal of Gen. Kayani and ISI chief Lt.

Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha in one swift stroke,” a senior government official privy to the developments said, adding, “The PPP government wants to make it remains in charge, not the army or ISI.”

Tension between the army and the government had reached alarming proportions last week but the two sides were able to reconcile with Prime Minister Gilani and Gen. Kayani issuing friendly statements.

The PPP government had given a full three-year extension to Gen. Kayani a year ago. ISI chief Lt. Gen. Pasha is also on a one-year extension.

The last time a political government (led by Nawaz Sharif) tried to sack an army chief (in 1999), it resulted in a military coup.

The government’s extreme unhappiness with the two officers is now an open secret. Not only are they being held responsible for forcing Islamabad to adopt an extremely harsh stance towards Washington after the Salala massacre, the two also adopted an opposing stance to that of the government in the memo affair.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/115967" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f877a95aa668de0f1dfd0c0244628330" value="form-f877a95aa668de0f1dfd0c0244628330" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="81050612" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>