India should not underestimate Pakistan's military power because it is 'capable of thwarting any aggression from the east', President Asif Ali Zardari said at a meeting with Gen Tariq Majid, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, in Islamabad on Tuesday night.
Pakistan has decided to further strengthen its defence forces and strategic and conventional capabilities to ensure that the country's security is not jeopardised by "efforts to disturb the regional balance".
A media report about the US and Pakistan negotiating secret understandings on allowing American troops to provide security to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the event of a crisis are "absurd and plain mischievous", a top military official said here today.
Pakistan on Saturday test-fired a long-range ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads and hitting targets within India. The test-firing of the Shaheen-II or Hatf-VI surface-to-surface ballistic missile the first missile test since Pakistan's new government assumed office last month was witnessed by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani.
Lt Gen Zubair Hayat appointed as Chairman of Joint Chief of Staff Committee.
Ending weeks of speculation, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday appointed Lt Gen Raheel Sharif as Pakistan's new army chief and Lt Gen Rashid Mehmood as the chairman joint chiefs of staff committee.
