Decades ago, the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) claimed to have made history by downing advanced fighter jets of the Israel Air Force (IAF) on two separate occasions.
The alleged aerial victories against one of the world’s most advanced air forces have suddenly returned to the spotlight after Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed a mutual defense agreement.
Earlier this month, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey signed the “Mecca Joint Defense Agreement”, which enshrines the principle that “an attack on one is an attack on all,” similar to NATO’s Article 5.
Interestingly, all three countries have emphasized that the pact is not directed at any third country and is purely defensive, as EurAsian Times explained in detail earlier. However, this partnership, as per analysts, is intended to deter regional powers like Iran and Israel.
Pakistan and Turkey are unlikely to fight Iran over actions against Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia will not risk a conflict with Israel, making this new partnership more nuanced than it may seem.
On its part, Pakistan has consistently maintained an anti-Israel stance, voted against Israel in the United Nations, and consistently criticized Tel Aviv’s activities. In fact, Pakistani passports bear an inscription stating the document is valid for travel to all nations worldwide, except Israel.
“Israel is evil and a curse for humanity,” Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on X while condemning Israel’s bombing of Lebanon that killed scores of civilians earlier this year. “First Gaza, then Iran, and now Lebanon, bloodletting continues unabated,” he added. In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Asif’s remarks were akin to calling for Israel’s destruction. “Pakistan Defense Minister’s call for Israel’s annihilation is outrageous. This is not a statement that can be tolerated from any government, especially not from one that claims to be a neutral arbiter for peace,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Additionally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused foreign bot farms with links to Pakistan of fuelling anti-Israel sentiment among young Americans in a campaign on social media, as the EurAsian Times reported.
While maintaining an aggressive posture against Israel, former Pakistani officials and defense enthusiasts regularly boast about the times that Pakistani fighter pilots reigned over Israel in aerial duels in combat.
One such video surfaced online recently, featuring Air Commodore Khalid Chishti of the Pakistan Air Force who reiterated these claims, emphasizing that Pakistani pilots had managed to shoot down IAF jets during the 1967 and 1973 Arab wars.
Did Pakistani Pilots Really Down IAF Jets?
Israel fought a war with the Arab alliance of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in June 1967, from June 5 to 10, 1967, also known as the Six-Day War. It ended in a defeat for the Arab alliance, with Israel seizing the Golan Heights from Syria, the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, from Jordan.
While Pakistan had nothing to do with this war, its Air Force got involved and shot down a few adversary fighter jets, if Pakistani accounts are to be believed.
Pakistan did not send official ground forces or a formal military contingent, but a small number of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) personnel, primarily pilot volunteers, participated on the Arab side, mainly with Jordan and Iraq. Islamabad supported the Arab cause diplomatically and politically, and some reports claimed that PAF pilots downed several Israeli aircraft, including Mirages, Mystères, and Vautours, without losing a single plane of their own.
One PAF pilot—Pakistan’s Bangladeshi-origin advisory or training postings or as in fighter pilot Saif-ul-Azam—is hailed for his alleged role in the war. According to Air Commodore (Retd.) Kaiser Tufail, who has authored three books on air force history, says Flight Lieutenant (at that time) Saif-ul-Azam downed three IAF fighter jets between June 5 and June 7.
In November 1966, the PAF dispatched “a few” pilots to Jordan to instruct the Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF), primarily for training and advisory purposes. On June 5, 1967, when the conflict started, two PAF pilots–Saif-ul-Azam and Flt. Lt. Sarwar Shad were serving with the RJAF.
“Though they were purely sent to train the RJAF pilots, the Pakistani government allowed them to perform air defense duties at the outbreak of war,” Tufail recalled.
As per Pakistani accounts, Azam downed the Israeli Air Force’s premier transonic Dassault Mystère fighter-bomber in Jordan while piloting the single-seat Hawker Hunter. The following day, he was transferred to an Iraqi airbase and destroyed two cutting-edge Israeli fighter planes, the Dassault Mirage III and the Vautour IIA.
Experts later said Azam’s keen vision prevented Jordanian and Iraqi air bases from suffering the same fate as the Egyptian Air Force, which was destroyed by Israelis.
“The gallant action of Azam, unfortunately, turned out to be merely symbolic in terms of the ultimate results of the war,” Tufail stated. ”There was no question of ground support as all three countries’ air forces were completely mauled on the ground by the Israeli Air Force on the very first day, i.e., June 5 (1967),” Tufail noted.
Years later, Israel again found itself in intense combat against a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.
In October 1973, during Yom Kippur, a coalition of Arab states launched a surprise attack on Israel to retake the territory lost during the third Arab-Israeli war in 1967.
Once again, Pakistan unexpectedly joined the war that it had no direct involvement with, as the then Pakistani Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who sought to maintain strong ties with Arab countries, supported deploying Pakistani pilots to the Middle East.
At the time, about 16 PAF fighter pilots, including Sattar Alvi, along with some radar controllers, volunteered and traveled via a PAF aircraft to Baghdad, then onward. Half of them were directed to Egypt, and the other half to Syria.
In Syria, the pilots were based mainly at Dumayr Air Base near Damascus and formed an all-PAF detachment. They flew MiG-21s on air-defense alert, combat air patrols (CAPs), and related missions under the call-sign “Shahbaz.”
The most documented PAF aerial success linked to this period occurred after the main Yom Kippur fighting, during the lingering War of Attrition phase on the Syrian front.
On 26 April 1974, Flight Lieutenant Abdus Sattar Alvi, flying a Syrian MiG-21F-13 as “Shahbaz-8,” engaged Israeli aircraft over the Golan Heights.
After receiving a radar warning of intruders, including Israeli Mirages and Phantoms on what was assessed as a reconnaissance mission with escorts, Alvi broke off from a formation to face off with the incoming jets.
As the Israeli Mirage drew closer, Alvi found himself in a dangerous situation while doing the high-stakes aerial dance known as “squires.” He needed to move quickly because fuel was running low and another Israeli fighter was closing in.
Just as the Israeli pilot (Captain M. Lutz) was trying to flee, Alvi saw a window of opportunity and launched a Russian-origin missile at the target.
At first, he struggled with doubt when the rocket failed to launch immediately, creating a stressful situation, but returned to base nonetheless, narrowly avoiding disaster as his fuel gauge plummeted below zero.
Although Alvi remained silent about the incident for years, even denying his involvement when questioned, the government of Pakistan awarded him the Star of Courage.
The PAF frequently cites these incidents as shining examples of its training and capabilities against Israel, which boasts some of the world’s most advanced air forces.
Interestingly, Israeli Ministry of Defense casualty lists contain no record of a pilot named “Captain Lutz” or any close variant of such a name who was killed, missing, or captured in April 1974 over the Golan.
IAF historian Shlomo Aloni, in Israeli Mirage III and Nesher Aces, records only one Mirage combat loss in all of 1974: on 6 May, attributed to a Syrian SAM — not an air-to-air engagement on 26 April.
The flight suit displayed in the Pakistan Air Force Museum (bearing “Lutz”) is treated by Israeli experts as manufactured evidence. The consistent Israeli and Western position is clear: no such loss occurred on that date or under those circumstances.
For the 1967 Claims (Flt Lt Saif-ul-Azam): Israel acknowledges the aircraft losses, but not the attribution to a Pakistani pilot. Israeli records confirm losses on the relevant days and locations: – A Mystère IV over Jordan on 5 June (Mafraq area). – Two Vautours and one Mirage in the costly 7 June raid on Iraq’s H-3 airbase.
Israeli sources credit these to Jordanian or Iraqi Hawker Hunters in general, without naming any Pakistani volunteer.
“The damage to H-3 was peripheral, and the losses – a killed pilot and navigator, two pilots captured and three aircraft downed – were heavier than at any other base.” IAF Commander Maj Gen Mordechai Hod is reported to have regarded the post-war critique of the H-3 operation as “almost as if he had lost the war”—acknowledging a setback, but again without any reference to Pakistani pilots.
Ezer Weizman’s only known remark about a Pakistani airman concerns Air Marshal Nur Khan, not Azam: “He was a formidable fellow, and I was glad that he was Pakistani and not an Egyptian.”
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