New Delhi: Pakistan’s cabinet on Tuesday (May 20) approved Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s proposal to elevate army chief Asim Munir to the top rank of field marshal in light of his leadership during the recently concluded India-Pakistan conflict, state-run media said.The army chief has accepted the cabinet’s decision.The cabinet also decided to continue the services of Pakistan’s air force chief beyond the end of his term, which would have occurred early next year.It decided to elevate Field Marshal Munir to his new rank for “ensuring the security of the country and defeating the enemy [India]” and his “unparalleled leadership” during the Indo-Pakistani conflict earlier this month, the state-run PTV said.In a statement released via the Inter-Services Public Relations department in Urdu, Field Marshal Munir dedicated his elevation “to the entire nation, the armed forces of Pakistan, especially the civil and military martyrs and ghazis”.Field marshal is the highest rank attainable in the Pakistani army.It is a five-star ceremonial rank and the only other Pakistani soldier to have had it is the country’s former leader Ayub Khan, who a security official speaking to Reuters noted had conferred the distinction upon himself in 1965. Khan had seized power in a coup in 1958.The official also noted that the rank is usually conferred to someone for their ‘extraordinary leadership and wartime achievement’.Those with the rank remain in the army’s ‘active list’ until death under the British system of ranks and privileges that the Indian and Pakistani armies are modelled on, as per the Indian Express.Meanwhile, the cabinet also decided that the country’s air force chief, Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmad Babar Sidhu, would serve in his capacity even after his term expires next year.His extension comes after Islamabad claimed that the Pakistani military downed five Indian fighter jets during the India-Pakistan conflict.The Indian air force has declined to reveal whether and how many platforms it lost during the conflict, saying only that “losses are a part of combat” and that India had achieved its objective of eliminating its target terror camps.Pakistan’s federal legislature passed a law in November extending the statutory tenure of the country’s service chiefs from three years to five. Air Chief Marshal Sidhu, who assumed his post in March 2021, was therefore to demit office early next year.Islamabad also decided to honour “officers and soldiers of the Pakistan armed forces, ghazis, martyrs and Pakistani citizens from various fields” with awards for their “valuable services” during Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, which is Pakistan’s name for its retaliatory operation to India’s Operation Sindoor.New Delhi launched Operation Sindoor early on May 7 by launching missile strikes against nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir housing ‘terrorist infrastructure’ in retaliation to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.The two sides went on to launch military operations against each other until a ceasefire was reached on May 10, which US President Donald Trump has claimed was mediated by Washington.The Indian external affairs ministry has said that it was the “force of Indian arms that compelled Pakistan to stop its firing”.At least 20 border residents and five soldiers on the Indian side lost their lives during the conflict.