Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced that Lieutenant General Aamer Raza, the chief of general staff of the Pakistan Army, has been promoted to the rank of a four-star general and appointed Commander National Strategic Command (CNSC), the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said on Friday. According to the PMO, the premier congratulated the newly promoted general and wished him best for “undertaking this important responsibility”. The post was created under the 27th Constitutional Amendment, which made significant changes to the military’s chain of command. The CNSC will oversee unified strategic operations now spread across the services. The appoint­ment, reappointment and extension of the CNSC are tied solely to the recommendation of the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), a post that was also created under the amendment, and shielded from judicial review through a sweeping exclusion clause that legal experts describe as unprecedented. Meanwhile, parallel revisions to the Army, Navy and Air Force Acts eliminated the Chai­rman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee office, redefined internal hierarchies and strengthened the CDF’s role, expanding the army chief’s influence across joint and strategic domains. More to follow