Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa has been appointed as the new Chief of Army Staff who will replace the outgoing military head General Raheel Sharif on November 29.

The decision to appoint Lt. Gen Bajwa as Gen Sharif’s successor was taken by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on November 26.

Lt Gen Bajwa is currently serving at the General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, as Inspector General of Training and Evaluation — the position Gen Sharif held before becoming army chief — he has commanded the 10 Corps, the army’s largest, which is responsible for the area along the Line of Control (LoC).

Lt Gen Bajwa has extensive experience of handling affairs in Kashmir and the northern areas of the country. As a major general, he led the Force Command Northern Areas. He also served in the 10 Corps as lieutenant colonel, where he was GSO.

Despite his extensive involvement with Kashmir and northern areas, he is said to consider extremism a bigger threat for the country than India.

Lt Gen Bajwa has served with a UN mission in Congo as a brigade commander alongside former Indian army chief Gen Bikram Singh, who was also there as a division commander.

He has previously also remained the commandant of the Infantry School in Quetta.

His military colleagues say he remains well-connected with his troops. He is from the infantry’s Baloch Regiment, which has given three officers to the post of army chief — Gen Yahya Khan, Gen Aslam Beg and Gen Kayani.

In a recent report published by the Reuters, the wire service quoted a serving brigadier who has worked with Bajwa saying, “he is the general most similar in temperament to General Raheel”.