ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's military pushed back Friday after imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan called the country's army chief ''mentally unstable.'' The army labeled Khan ''mentally ill'' and accused him of using family visits and social media posts to attack the armed forces and sow division.
Army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, without directly naming Khan, described him as a ''narcissist'' whose political ambitions had grown so extreme that he believed ''if I am not in power, nothing else should exist.''
Chaudhry told a televised news conference that people meeting Khan in prison were being used ''to spread poison against the army.'' His remarks came after one of Khan's sisters met with him at a prison, and said her brother was angry at Munir.
Chaudhry's rare remarks also followed a post by Khan on X a day earlier in which he labeled army chief Gen. Asim Munir a ''mentally unstable person'' and accused him of moral decline that had caused ''the complete collapse of the Constitution and rule of law in Pakistan.'' Khan said he and his wife were jailed on fabricated charges ''at his command'' and claimed he was being held in solitary confinement and subjected to psychological pressure.
Khan, 73, has been imprisoned since 2023 following a corruption conviction and faces a series of other charges.
Chaudhry, at the news conference, displayed Khan's latest post on X, saying Afghan and Indian media had amplified the ''nonsense'' of a ''mentally ill person'' and his allegations against Munir were baseless.
The latest development came a day after Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifapproved the promotion of the widely popular Munir as the chief of defense forces, a position that was established last month to improve coordination among the army, navy and air force.
Munir has risen to prominence since earlier this year, when Pakistan said it defeated India in a four-day conflict. Chaudhry said Khan is deliberately trying to stoke hostility toward the military.
