Islamabad:
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani fired his defence secretary, a retired general and confidant of Pakistan's army chief, on Wednesday as the civilian government drew closer to a head-on collision with the country's powerful military leadership.
Mr. Gilani accused the secretary of defence, Naeem Khalid Lodhi, a former corps commander, of "gross misconduct and illegal action" and of "creating misunderstanding between the state institutions." He replaced the former general with a civilian aide, Nargis Sethi, Reuters reported.
The dismissal of the top civilian defence official intensified tensions between the government of President Asif Ali Zardari and the army leadership following the publication of a controversial memo, purportedly drafted by the government shortly after an American raid last year killed Osama bin Laden, that solicited help in stopping a possible coup by the humiliated Pakistani military.
Analysts here expected some sort of retaliatory step by the military after Wednesday's firing and there were local news reports of a reshuffling among several top ranking military officials. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the army chief, called an emergency meeting of his top commanders on Thursday.
The firing came as the military warned the prime minister that his recent statements against General Kayani would have "serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences for the country." Mr. Gilani had accused Mr. Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan's intelligence service, of acting as "state within a state" and reminded them they were accountable to the Parliament. Those statements were seen as suggesting that they could be removed from power.
Gilani told reporters late in the night that Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had spoken to him before the statement was issued.
The Prime Minister defended his decision to dismiss Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retd) Naeem Khalid Lodhi, who is considered close to Kayani, saying the top defence official had violated rules of business and had to go.
He also rejected murmurs of any threat to democracy, which he said was Pakistan's "destiny" now.
Speculation about the government's intentions to dismiss the two commanders were fuelled by news reports in the stridently anti-American press in Pakistan, where many people view the United States as an arrogant adversary instead of an ally. That view has increased in the months since the Bin Laden raid last May and the deaths of 26 Pakistani soldiers in an American airstrike near the border with Afghanistan late last year.
Pakistani analysts said the firing of Mr. Lodhi could be a potentially ominous sign that the festering conflict between the army and the civilian government had reached a critical stage.
"It is a desperate measure," said Ikram Sehgal, a defence analyst and former army officer. "They want the army to react and to make a coup."
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military and political analyst, said the firing would only exacerbate the situation for the civilian government. "If the prime minister now tries to fire the army chief, it will have very dangerous consequences."
General Lodhi, who was only recently appointed defence secretary, became embroiled in a controversy last month after he submitted a statement in the Supreme Court on behalf of the Defence Ministry stating that the civilian government had no operational control over Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's powerful spy agency. Mr. Gilani strongly took an exception to the statement and accused Mr. Lodhi of overstepping his mandate.