Pakistan's military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharreff, yesterday consolidated his grip on power by swiftly sacking two of his most senior generals, in an attempt to head off a growing revolt within the army against his pro-American policies.
The president demoted the head of Pakistan's powerful ISI military intelligence agency, Lieut Gen Mehmood Ahmed, and also pushed out his deputy chief of army staff, Gen Muzaffar Hussain Usmani. Both officers were regarded as hardline Islamists.
Gen Mehmood was previously a close ally of Gen Musharreff's. Last month he headed two delegations to Kandahar, where he tried to persuade the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, to hand over Osama bin Laden. Both missions ended in failure. Sources suggest Gen Mehmood disagreed with Gen Musharreff's decision to dump the Taliban as an ally. Two three-star generals were yesterday appointed to crucial positions within the army. Gen Muhammad Yousaf - described by one former officer as a "decent man but no genius" was unveiled as the vice-chief of army staff, in effect Gen Musharreff's deputy. The "pious" Gen Muhammad Aziz Khan was appointed as the head of a key military committee. Both are Musharreff loyalists.
The reshuffle makes it harder for right-wing fundamentalist officers, who form a significant faction within Pakistan's powerful army, to topple Gen Musharreff in a counter-coup. The army has stayed loyal to him so far. But as Muslim casualties in Afghanistan mount, dissent from inside the ranks is likely to grow.
"Gen Musharreff can't afford to have any group within the army which has a different viewpoint," Lt Gen Talat Masood, a close friend of the general's and a former minister, said. "He now has a team which is totally aligned to him both intellectually and conceptually." The changes would prevent internal bickering, he added. "Gen Musharreff is very committed to his policy [of backing the US]. He wants the whole country to be committed as well," he added.
The shake-up came only a day after Gen Musharreff announced he was extending his term as president indefinitely. The move - only hours after Mr Tony Blair's visit to Pakistan - was "in the larger interests of the country", his military spokesman, Maj Gen Rashid Qureshi, said.
Gen Musharreff was due to retire over the weekend after serving three years as a four-star general and chief of army staff.
Gen Musharreff said his reshuffle had "no relation whatsoever" with events unfolding inside Afghanistan. He said he had been contemplating a change in the army hierarchy for several months. "I was wearing too many hats," he said.
The threat to Gen Musharreff comes from a significant right-wing group in the middle-upper echelons of the army, made up of admirers of Pakistan's late hardline dictator, Gen Zia ul-Haq.
The soldiers were junior officers during the Zia era in the 1980s but have now risen to the level of corps commanders. "At least half of the 10-12 corps commanders in Pakistan are Islamist or influenced by them," one source said last night.