Field Marshal Asim Munir Appointed as Pakistan's First Chief of Defence Forces in Historic Military Restructuring

Pakistan President has appointed Field Marshal Asim Munir as the country's first Chief of Defence Forces.

President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan has officially approved Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir's appointment as the nation's inaugural Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) for a five-year term.

The recommendation from Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for Munir to serve as both Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) received presidential approval, as confirmed by an official announcement from the President's office on social media platform X.

"President Asif Ali Zardari approved the appointment of Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir as COAS concurrently as CDF for 5 years," stated the official X account of Pakistan's President.

This appointment follows considerable speculation regarding Prime Minister Sharif's willingness to grant additional authority to Munir. The Sharif administration had been expected to announce the country's first Chief of Defence Forces on November 29, coinciding with the conclusion of Munir's original three-year term as army chief.

The Chief of Defence Forces position was established recently under the 27th Constitutional Amendment, with the aim of centralizing military command structure.

In a related development, President Zardari also sanctioned a two-year service extension for Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmad Babar Sidhu, effective from March 19, 2026.

The President extended his best wishes to both senior Pakistan Armed Forces officers.

Field Marshal Munir, who received his promotion to the prestigious rank earlier this year, will simultaneously maintain his position as Chief of Army Staff alongside his new CDF responsibilities. He becomes only the second military officer in Pakistani history to hold the Field Marshal title, following Gen. Ayub Khan who commanded Pakistan during the 1965 India-Pakistan conflict.

Prior to this announcement, when the government delayed issuing the official notification about Munir's CDF appointment, former Indian National Security Advisory Board member Tilak Devasher suggested that Prime Minister Sharif was deliberately avoiding the matter.

In comments to ANI, Devasher noted that Sharif's travel to Bahrain and subsequently London fueled speculation about intentional avoidance of issuing the notification.

"Very smartly, the Pakistan PM had gone to Bahrain, and from there, he pushed off to London," Devasher told ANI. "He is deliberately staying out of this because he clearly doesn't want to issue the notification giving Asim Munir 5 years as Army chief and as Chief of Defence Forces. He thinks that by keeping away from Pakistan and not having to sign the notification, he can escape the consequences."

According to Devasher, this notification delay had created constitutional and operational uncertainties. "All in all, this is a very messy state of affairs," he explained. "If the fact remains that he (Asim Munir) is no longer the Army chief, then you have a situation where Pakistan doesn't have an Army chief and even the nuclear command authority, which was supposed to be under the new post of Strategic Forces Command, is also not there. So, it's an extremely strange situation that Pakistan is under at the moment."