The
Army Strategic Forces Command (
ASFC) is the force which commands all of Pakistan's land based strategic forces. Its purpose is the deterrence of attack by aggressors against Pakistan. It is considered the 20th Corps of the Pakistan Army.
The Headquarters of the new formation was created in June 1999, shortly after the 1998 Nuclear Tests. The genesis of the new formation was that of then Chief of the Army Staff,
GeneralA general officer is an officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is simply called general.-All general officer...
Pervez MusharrafGeneral Pervez Musharraf , NI, TBt, was the 10th President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army,....
, who desired to have a formal command and control structure for the employment of Pakistan land based nuclear weapons.
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The
Army Strategic Forces Command (
ASFC) is the force which commands all of Pakistan's land based strategic forces. Its purpose is the deterrence of attack by aggressors against Pakistan. It is considered the 20th Corps of the Pakistan Army.
History
The Headquarters of the new formation was created in June 1999, shortly after the 1998 Nuclear Tests. The genesis of the new formation was that of then Chief of the Army Staff,
GeneralA general officer is an officer of high military rank. The term or equivalent is used by nearly every country in the world. General can be used as a generic term for all grades of general officer, or it can specifically refer to a single rank that is simply called general.-All general officer...
Pervez MusharrafGeneral Pervez Musharraf , NI, TBt, was the 10th President of Pakistan and the Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army,....
, who desired to have a formal command and control structure for the employment of Pakistan land based nuclear weapons. The formation itself became operational in March 2000. It became a fully fledge
corpsA Corps is either a large formation, or an administrative grouping of troops within an armed force with a common function such as Artillery or Signals representing an arm of service...
in 2004.
Employment
The official remit of the formation is "the command and employment of all land-based strategic assets." This rather vague description seems to imply that it controls most, if not all, of
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
s Ballistic launchers. While Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state, it is unknown at this time if ASFC is in possession or control of any nuclear warheads, though presumably in a
nuclear warNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weapons are used. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare is vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
a good percentage of the warheads would be delivered to their targets by the launchers of the ASFC.
List of commanders
- Lt Gen Akhter Khan, April 2001 – Aug 2004
- Lt Gen Mazhar Javed, Aug 2004 – Jan 2006
- Lt Gen Syed Shakir Naseer, Jan 2006 – present
Composition
Since 2004, ASFC has been made the equivalent of a
corpsA Corps is either a large formation, or an administrative grouping of troops within an armed force with a common function such as Artillery or Signals representing an arm of service...
. It has subordinate
divisionsA division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between ten to thirty thousand soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions make up a corps...
, brigades and units. There is scant information on these.