Gen Rashad Mehmood appointed Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee

ISLAMABAD: Chief of General Staff (CGS) Lieutenant General Rashad Mehmood was appointed as the Chairman Joint Chief of Staff Committee (CJCSC) on Thursday, Express News reported. A guard of honour was also presented to Mehmood, who was the principal staff officer (PSO) to General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Kayani will hand the baton to his successor Lieutenant General Raheel Sharif, who will become Pakistan’s 15th Army chief as of Friday. On his last day as chief of army staff, Kayani held a farewell meeting at the Army General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi. Profile Rashad was the operational and intelligence eyes and ears of Kayani. As commander of Lahore’s IV Corps, he had interacted with the Sharifs when their party were in power in Punjab in the previous administration. He is perceived as being close to the US because of his stint at Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as well as for his work on countering Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). Like Kayani, he is also from the Baloch regiment.