XII Corps (Pakistan)

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:

List of Commanders XII Corps

See also

• 2022 Pakistan Army helicopter incident

Further reading

• Cloughley, Brian (1999). A History of the Pakistan Army: Wars and Insurrections. Karachi, Sind, Pakistan: Karachi University Press. ISBN 9780195790153.