ISLAMABAD - Vice Admiral Mohammad Asif Sandila has assumed the duties of Chief of Staff here at the Naval Headquarters. He has been appointed Chief of Staff upon retirement of Vice Admiral Shahid Iqbal. Vice Admiral Mohammad Asif Sandila joined Pakistan Navy in 1972 and after initial training at Pakistan Naval Academy, he was selected for training at Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth (UK). He was commissioned in the Operations Branch in June 1975. He specialized as Principal Warfare Officer from UK. He did Naval Command and Staff Course from Indonesia and MSc (War Studies) from National Defence University, Islamabad. He held various command and staff appointments. On operational sea billets, he has commanded Pakistan Navy destroyer PNS BADR and has also commanded 25th Destroyer Squadron of Pakistan Navy. On staff side, he has served as Divisional Officer and Training Commander at Pakistan Naval Academy and Fleet Operations Officer to Commander Pakistan Fleet. At Naval Headquarters, he was assigned the duties of Flag Lt to Chief of the Naval Staff, Director Project (Plans), Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Plans) and Principal Secretary to Chief of the Naval Staff. He was promoted to Flag rank in Nov 2005. As Flag Officer, he headed the Operations and Project Branches of PN in the capacity of Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Operations) and Deputy Chief of Naval Staff (Projects) at Naval Headquarters Islamabad. In the field, he has been DG Maritime Security Agency, Commander Pakistan Fleet and Commander Logistics before taking over his present appointment as Chief of Staff (COS) at Naval Headquarters. He is recipient of the award of Hilal-e-Imtiaz (Military) and Chevalier de I order National Due Merit for rescue of French national in Maldives during Tsunami in December 2004.