GEN Asim Munir entered the service via the Officers Training School (OTS) programme in Mangla, where he undertook the 17th Officers Training Course and was commissioned into the 23 Frontier Force Regiment in 1986. He was awarded the coveted Sword of Honor for his course. He has been a close aide of the incumbent COAS eversince he commanded troops in the Force Command Northern Areas as a brigadier under Gen Bajwa, who was then Commander X Corps. As major general he was first posted as Force Commander Northern Areas (FCNA), the division deployed along the forward lines at Siachen.

He was later appointed DG Military Intelligence in early 2017, and in October next year was made the ISI chief. However, his stint as the top intelligence of ficer turned out to be the shortest ever, when he was abruptly replaced by Lt Gen Faiz Hamid within eight months, on the insistence of then PM Imran Khan.

He was posted as Gujranwala Corps commander, a position he held for two years, before moving to the GHQ as Quartermaster General. He has done a staff course from Fuji School Japan, and later from Malaysian Armed Forces College Kuala Lumpur, and graduated from National Defense University. At some point in his career he also served as defense attaché in Saudi Arabia.

He is first army chief to have headed both MI and ISI, and also the first army chief who served as QMG, and first army chief f rom the OT S programme.

OTS trained officers from the 1950s to 1990s, but most of its graduates ended up at the ranks of major or colonel in the army, with very few rising to the rank of brigadier.