Islamabad [Pakistan], May 21 : For the first time in the Pakistan Army's recorded history, two top generals essentially let rioters inside their homes and offices, enabling them to ransack and set fire to the buildings, reported The Pakistan Daily Monitor.
It does not matter whether the attacks were premeditated or unplanned. Additionally, the generals who have made mistakes are being removed from their positions with possible penalties.
The several incidents that occurred at the General Headquarters of the Pakistan Army, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the houses of the Corps Commanders in Lahore and Rawalpindi have damaged the Pakistan Army's prestige at home and reputation among overseas security organisations.
The evidence suggests that two generals had informed General Asim Munir beforehand if the demonstrators carry an attack, they would not open fire on them, according to audio leaks purportedly collected by intelligence services that follow final instructions from the military, as per a report published in The Pakistan Daily Monitor.
Divided at the top, the army has suffered a historic defeat, largelybut cruciallybecause the judiciary has blocked its attempts to rein in Imran Khan, a proxy-gone-rogue.
The institutions, especially the military-civil "establishment," underestimated Khan's capacity to divide them. They are having difficulty controlling the general turmoil.
The situation has been made worse by the incompetence of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif's civilian administration, according to The Pakistan Daily Monitor.
When the current Chief Justice leaves office on September 16, 2023, the turf battle inside the judiciary may or may not come to an end. And nobody anticipates that elections, the main point of disagreement, would remedy or even lessen Pakistan's numerous issues, if and when they are held.
Attacking army facilities, or rather allowing them to be assaulted, is uncommon in a nation where serving military personnel cannot even be the subject of a police investigation.
All institutions in Pakistan, especially the army and even more so, General Munir must worry over the persistent tweets from American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, who was born in Afghanistan but holds no official position in the Biden administration but is still influential in the American power structure when it comes to "Af-Pak," the region he dealt with under the George W Bush Jr and Donald Trump regimes.
In recent tweets (May 13, 2023) Khalilzad claimed that two generals were at odds with their chief and requested the resignation of General Munir. Despite opposition from an enraged foreign office in Islamabad that said in March that Pakistan did not need "lectures" from "outsiders," he has continued to tweet throughout the situation, as per The Pakistan Daily Monitor.
Khan has received open backing from Khalilzad, who has also requested discussions and expressed displeasure over his incarceration. Despite the Biden administration's declaration that it was backing "Pakistan and its institutions, not any individual," there remains a nagging concern that the US may be using Khalilzad to convey its views.
The US and other nations keeping tabs on Pakistan's crises are hopeful that the army, which is still the nation's best-organized institution, can weather the crisis with assistance from the Sharif Government.
If the situation worsens, though, some Pakistani media outlets have predicted a "national emergency" that wouldn't include martial law, a caretaker administration in place of Sharif's, and a two-year period without elections as Pakistan works through the current "economic emergency," The Pakistan Daily Monitor reported.
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