Ashfaq Parvez Kayani NI(M) HI(C) HI(M) LoM LoH OMM (Urdu: اشفاق پرویز کیانی ; born 20 April 1952), is a retired four-star general of the Pakistan Army who served as the eighth chief of army staff, being appointed on 29 November 2007 after his predecessor Pervez Musharraf retired from his military service and remained in the office until 29 November 2013.

On 24 July 2010, Kayani's tenure was extended for three more years by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani to continue the war efforts against the insurgent outfits.

[5] After graduating from the military institutions in the United States, Ashfaq returned to Pakistan and attained his Master of Science in War studies from the National Defence University.

[5] Ashfaq briefly taught war courses at the Command and Staff College in Quetta and later moved on to accepting the professorship of strategic studies and joined the teaching faculty at the National Defence University in Islamabad.

Upon his promotion to two-star rank, Major-General Kayani served as the general officer commanding of the 12th Infantry Division stationed in Murree, deployed all over the LoC region and which comes under the X Corps.

[4] Reportedly, Kayani only slept a few hours a night during that period as he diligently oversaw the unified armed forces mobilisation and preparedness on the border.

[8] Kayani was also present at the March 2007 meeting that took place between Musharraf and Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, when the former military ruler informed the top judge that he was suspended.

Gen Kayani is also credited with developing response to Indian cold start doctrine, which the Army validated by conducting Azm e Nau exercises.

Before Kayani's tenure, under the command and administration of President General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan had lost nearly 30% of its North-West Frontier Province and 100% of the FATA in the hands of Taliban and its allies.

The districts such as Buner, Dir, Shangla and Swat fell out of writ of Government of Pakistan by 2007 as militants flashed into mainland of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa further expanding their influence beyond peripheries of FATA.

Pakistan Army under the Kayani Doctrine was able to capture six tribal agencies and four settled districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa including Swat and South Waziristan, which were two strongholds of TTP.

He told a gathering of military commanders in the garrison city of Rawalpindi that "the army fully stands behind the democratic process and is committed to playing its constitutional role".

Most, including the then CIA chief Michael Hayden, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell and former CENTCOM-commander Admiral William J. Fallon came away confident that Kayani "knows what he's doing.

[15] Davis, a CIA contractor, was hastily tried and acquitted of murder charges in exchange for blood money paid to relatives of the victims, after which he was sent out of Pakistan within a matter of hours.

[16] The day after Davis' release, over 40 people were killed in the Datta Khel airstrike in North Waziristan in the FATA, in a drone strike by a US Predator aircraft.

Kayani conducted a rare press conference in which he condemned the drone strike (even persuading the Pakistani government to summon American Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, and lodge a "protest in the strongest possible terms") and labelled it "intolerable".

In 2011, after delivering a long lecture at the National Defence University, one staff officer reportedly got up and challenged his policy of co-operation with the United States.

The report went on to say the overall communications included private demands that the CIA suspend drone strikes and also reduce the number of US intelligence and Special Operations personnel in the country.