Former DG (ISI) could succeed Gen Bajwa as Pakistan Army Chief
According to Pakistan watchers, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed was made Peshawar Corps commander as it is mandatory for contenders of Pakistan Army Chief’s post to have commanded a Corps level formation for at least one year.
After successfully handing over the keys of Kabul to Sirajuddin Haqqani, head of eponymous global terrorist network, former head of Pakistani ISI and now XI Corps Commander at Peshawar Lt Gen Faiz Hameed is in reckoning to succeed his fellow Baloch regiment senior, Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, as the next Chief of Pakistan Army in 2022. Gen Bajwa is expected to complete his extraordinary six-year tenure as Pakistan Army Chief in November 2022.
From left: Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, Pakistan Army chief General Qamar Bajwa and new ISI chief Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
According to Pakistan watchers, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed was made Peshawar Corps commander as it is mandatory for contenders of Pakistan Army Chief’s post to have commanded a Corps level formation for at least one year. Gen Hameed has served staff posting at Rawalpindi GHQ after commanding an infantry division at Pano Aqil in Sindh province between 2015-2017. He was the 24th chief of ISI and has now been succeeded by former Karachi Corps Commander Lt Gen Nadeem Anjum.
While many a Pakistan Army watchers believe that Gen Bajwa may secure another two-year tenure for himself in November 2022, there is unison that Gen Hameed has been rewarded to the prestigious Peshawar Corps for getting Pakistan a much-required strategic depth in Afghanistan under the proxy Taliban regime. Not only did the ISI provided tactics, arms, ammunition and medical support to the Taliban, it also broke the back of Panjshiri resistance by providing Pakistani commandoes in mufti with military maps and drone surveillance of the area. Today, the Panjshiri resistance is cooling its heels in Dushanbe in Tajikistan with all major powers simply tired of Afghanistan.
{{^htLoading}} {{/htLoading}}
{{^usCountry}}
As commander of Peshawar Corps, Gen Hameed will be directly in touch with the Miramshah shura of the Taliban, the Haqqania madrassa in Akora Khattak in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and will also be part of negotiations with the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan. The Corps controls Khyber Pass on Afghanistan-Pakistan border as also keeps an eye on the Wakhan corridor, which juts into Xinjiang.
{{/usCountry}}
{{#usCountry}}
As commander of Peshawar Corps, Gen Hameed will be directly in touch with the Miramshah shura of the Taliban, the Haqqania madrassa in Akora Khattak in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and will also be part of negotiations with the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistan. The Corps controls Khyber Pass on Afghanistan-Pakistan border as also keeps an eye on the Wakhan corridor, which juts into Xinjiang.
{{/usCountry}}
By having personal access to the entire top Taliban leadership including Defence Minister Mullah Yaqoob and Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, Gen Hameed could play a key role in using the Sunni Pashtun force to push TTP towards a ceasefire with Pakistan Army in light of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s peace overtures.
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.
Get the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries. Follow major international events on Hindustan Times.
Get the latest World News, breaking headlines and global updates from the US, UK, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and other countries. Follow major international events on Hindustan Times.
