Who Is General Asim Munir? How Pakistan Army Chief's Kargil Remark Debunked 'Mujahideen Act' Claim Vindicating India

The Pakistani army has never publicly admitted to their involvement or the scale of their defeat in the 1999 Kargil war. Pakistan consistently claimed that the hundreds of infiltrators who had entrenched themselves on mountaintops in Kashmir were "Mujahideen".

Twenty-five years after the Kargil War, Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir, speaking at a Defence Day event, admitted that several soldiers participated in the 1999 conflict with India. 

Munir’s statement marks the first time Pakistan has openly acknowledged its active involvement in the war, marking a significant shift from its previously ambiguous stance. 

“The Pakistani community is a community of braves which understands the importance of freedom and how to pay for it. Be it 1948, 1965, 1971, or the Kargil war of 1999, thousands of soldiers sacrificed their lives for the country and Islam,” Munir said on Saturday. 

Who Is General Asim Munir?

Lieutenant General Asim Munir, currently serving as the Quartermaster General in the Pakistani army, was appointed as the Chief of Army Staff by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on November 24, 2022. Munir, who began his military career in 1986 after graduating from the Officers' Training School in Mangla, has held several significant roles. 

He commanded the Northern Areas Force as a brigadier and led two major Pakistani intelligence agencies: Military Intelligence (MI) from December 2016 to October 2018, and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from October 2018 to June 2019.

His tenure as ISI chief was cut short at the request of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, after which he was transferred to lead the Gujranwala Corps in Punjab. 

Later, he was assigned to the army's headquarters in Rawalpindi, responsible for overseeing military supplies. In September 2018, Munir was promoted to Lieutenant General, making him the most senior officer after the outgoing army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa.

Pakistan's Refusal To Accept Role In Kargil War

Pakistan's Army Chief, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, admitted that Pakistani troops occasionally conducted 'aggressive patrolling' on the Indian side but never officially stated that Pakistani soldiers fought in the Kargil War.

Musharraf also admitted the involvement of the Pakistani Army in his post-retirement book. However, he continued to insist that the intrusion was carried out by "Mujahideens" and "freedom fighters", without acknowledging that the forces were actually Pakistani soldiers and that the operation had been planned and executed by Pakistan's General Headquarters (GHQ). 

Pakistan even refused to claim their dead and wounded soldiers to avoid exposing the extent of the loss to their own citizens. It was the Indian Army that respectfully buried the fallen Pakistani soldiers and returned some of the bodies in front of the media.