Bangladesh’s Armed Forces Division under Chief Adviser Mohammad Yunus’ office will lay out the red carpet for a Pakistan Army lieutenant general when he lands at Dhaka’s Shah Jalal International Airport on October 6.
Lieutenant General Tabassum Habib, Director General of Joint Staff at Chaklala near Rawalpindi, will be the senior-most Pakistan Army officer to be in Dhaka since August 8, 2024, when the Yunus-led interim regime took over power by ousting the Sheikh Hasina government following a US-backed regime change operation.
Earlier, in January, Major General Shahid Amir Afsar and Maj Gen Alam Amir Awan of the Pakistan ISI, visited Bangladesh.
This was followed in June by the shadowy visit of three Pakistan Army brigadiers who were taken on a tour of Bangladesh Army’s 10th Infantry Division headquarters at Ramu in Cox’s Bazar district.
More recently, three other Pakistan Army major generals were in Dhaka, though the details of their visit and who they met remained a closely guarded secret.
However, Bangladesh Armed Forces Division, led by Lt Gen S M Kamrul Hassan, the first senior officer to visit Rawalpindi in early January 2025, has prepared to pull out all stop to host Lt Gen Habib.
The Pakistani guest is scheduled to land at Dhaka airport at 11:30 pm after which he will be driven to Hotel Radisson Blu.
The next day (October 7), he will be given a guard of honour at Sena Kunjo before he is driven to the AFD complex where he will meet Lt Gen Hassan. Lt Gen Habib will then be taken to Bangladesh Army headquarters where he will have meeting with Gen Waker-uz-Zaman.
The same process and ceremony will be followed in respect of Lt Gen Habib’s visit to Bangladesh Air Force and Navy headquarters. BAF and AFD will host a “working lunch” and dinner, respectively.
On October 8, Lt Gen Habib will visit the National Defence College in Dhaka before heading for Cox’s Bazar where he will have “quiet lunch” and check-in at Baywatch Hotel.
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Dinner that evening will be hosted by the Bangladesh Army. He will fly back to Pakistan on October 9 evening.
A graduate of Pakistan’s Command and Staff College, Quetta, Lt Gen Habib was commissioned in the Medium Regiment Artillery in 1991.
He is also a graduate of the Joint Services Staff College, Shrivenham, UK, and National Defence University, Islamabad.
Holder of a Master’s degree in Defence Studies from Kings College, London, Lt Gen Habib took a second Master’s in Art and Science of Warfare from Balochistan University and an MPhil degree in Public Policy and Strategic Security Management from National Defence University, Islamabad.
He also attended the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
