Shahid Iqbal

Vice-Admiral Shahid Iqbal, Born: 15 July 1953, HI(M), SI, is a retired 3-star rank naval officer and the former Chief of Staff (COS) of Pakistan Navy who served as the former Commander of Combined Task Force 150. He took over this post from retiring Vice Admiral Asaf Humayun on 30 December 2009. He was preceded by the Vice-Admiral Asif Sandilla in July 2010 and retired from the Navy.

Naval career
Shahid Iqbal was born in Lalpur, now Faisalabad, Punjab Province, and moved to Karachi in 1960. In 1966, Iqbal attended Cadet College Petaro and graduated from there in 1971. He attended Pakistan Naval Academy where he received his B.Sc. in Applied science in 1974. The same year, he gained commission in the Navy's Naval Operations Branch as he was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant. In 1978, he was sent to United Kingdom where he did a specialist operations course from Maritime Warfare School, and held a rank of Principle Warfare Officer upon his return. He later attended Turkish Naval Academy as a faculty staff officer and gained an advance degree in war tactics. Upon his return, Iqbal served as a faculty member of Naval War College and the research at the National Defence University (NDU). During 1990s, he was made Director-General of the Naval Intelligence and commanded the Naval Intelligence during the Operation Parakram. As Captain and Commodore, he held various staff appointments and also commanded various missile boats and destroyers.

In 2005, he was promoted to 2-Star rank Rear-Admiral and was made Commander of Pakistan Naval Combatant Operations. In 2006, he was given the command of CTF-150 at NAVCENT Bahrain. Admiral Iqbal was first Asian naval officer of a "regional nation" who was given command of any of the three coalition task forces that comprise the Combined Maritime Force. In 2007, after his return to Pakistan, Iqbal was made Deputy Chief of Naval Staff of Naval Operations. In 2008, he was promoted to Vice-Admiral and given the command of Deputy Chief of Naval Staff of the Naval Training. In 2009, he was made Commander of the Pakistan Naval Fleet. The same year, he was made Chief of Staff of Navy, thus second-in-command of Chief of Naval Staff of Pakistan Navy. With this promotion, he became a member of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) and served there as a naval advisor to the Prime minister of Pakistan. In 2010, he took honorary retirement from the navy as he was preceded by Vice-Admiral Asif Sandila as Chief of Staff.

Senior Appointments
In addition, he also held the appointments of Director General Naval Intelligence, Commander Combined Task Force 150 (Multinational Naval Force) at NAVCENT Bahrain, Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) and Commander Pakistan Fleet (COMPAK). Before his appointment as Chief of Staff, he was serving as Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Training and Personnel) at Naval Headquarters.