The XII Corps is a field corps of the Pakistan Army currently headquartered in Quetta, Balochistan in Pakistan.
With reserves, paramilitary, and other military formations supporting the XII Corps, the corps has an area of responsibility of Balochistan and oversees its mission of responsibility to protect as an army's regional formation in Pakistan's security apparatus known as the Southern Command.
History Formations and war service
The Afghan and Iranian immigration to Pakistan and the Afghan Army's military raids in Chaman prompted the Army GHQ to form and raise the military formations to guard its western borders in 1984. The XII Corps was raised with its HQ in Quetta Cantonment as Lt-Gen. K.K. Afridi becoming its first commander in 1985. Its military engagement has been limited to the Balochistan conflict, which it mainly tackles through the Frontier Corps (paramilitary) and local police department.
Syed Zakir Ali Zaidi served as the corps commander in 1987-89. After handing over the corps to his successor he became president of the National Defence University, from 1 August 1989 to18 June 1990.
Similar to the V Corps in Sindh, the XII Corps has an area of expertise in desert warfare, and oversees security operations together with the local law enforcement, mechanized divisions guarding the nation's desert and dune ranges, and paramilitary to ensure the national defenses of the Pakistan.
Together with the air force units, naval bases, marines camps, paramilitaries, army reserves, and air forces ranges, the XII Corps forms and leads the major regional formation in Pakistan's security spectrum known as the Southern Command.
Structure The XII Corps has not seen military action against the Indian Army (east) nor the Afghan National Army (west) but tackled counterinsurgency time to time which led to the troop rotations based on the strategic calculations. The XII Corps has receives reinforcement in its missions on war on terror and is based on the known information publicly available: Structure of XII CorpsCorpsCorps HQCorps CommanderAssigned UnitsUnit HQ XII Corps Quetta Rahat Naseem Ahmed Khan 33rd Infantry Division Khuzdar41st Infantry Division Quetta44th Light Infantry Division GwadarIndependent Infantry Brigade TurbatIndependent Armoured Brigade KhuzdarIndependent Infantry Brigade GwadarIndependent Engineer BrigadeU/I LocationIndependent Signal BrigadeU/I Location
List of Commanders XII Corps Lieutenant-General Rahat Naseem Ahmed Khan November 2023 Asif Ghafoor August 2022 November 2023Sarfraz Ali December 2020 August 2022Muhammad Waseem Ashraf September 2019 December 2020Asim Saleem BajwaSeptember 2017 September 2019Aamer Riaz October 2015 September 2017Nasser Khan JanjuaSeptember 2013 October 2015Alam Khattak October 2011 September 2013Javed Zia April 2010 October 2011Khalid Shameem Wynne April 2007 April 2010Shahid Hamid September 2003 October 2004Abdul Qadir Baloch October 2001 September 2003Mushtaq Hussain October 1999 October 2001Tariq Pervaiz May 1997 October 1999Saranjam Khan 1995 May 1997Zia Ullah Khan January 1993 1995Abdul Waheed Kakar August 1989 January 1993Syed Zakir Ali Zaidi May 1987 August 1989Khushdil Khan Afridi1985 May 1987
See also 2022 Pakistan Army helicopter incident
References
Further reading