South Asia
Pakistani general appointed military adviser to UN peacekeepers
New York, Aug 27: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Maqsood Ahmed as the military adviser for the Organization’s peacekeeping operations.
A national of Pakistan, Lt. Gen. Ahmed been a Corps Commander in that country’s Armed Forces. Among his other military appointments, he served a UN peacekeeping tour of duty in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) in 2005 and 2006.
Lt. Gen. Ahmed replaces Senegal’s Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye, whose tour of duty ended on 8 July 2013.
In a statement, Ban noted that Lt. Gen. Gaye had played a “key role” in establishing the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the brief observer mission in Syria and deploying the Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).
Lieutenant General Gaye is now Ban’s Special Representative for the Central African Republic and head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in that country (BINUCA).
