Dhaka – Quds News : The pilot, Saifullah Al-Azam, died at the age of 80, in the military hospital in the Bangladeshi capital, “Dhaka”, leaving behind him a unique military bus, as he was the only pilot in the world to shoot down four Israeli planes during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The pilot, Saifullah, is the only one in the world who served in a war environment for four air forces of different countries: Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, and Iraq.
who is he?
Saifullah Jameel al-Azim was born, greater or greater, or Azam – whose nickname was written in various forms – in 1941 in Babna, the Far East of India, in a region located in present-day Bangladesh, and his family lived in Calcutta until the decision to partition India in 1947, at which time the family migrated to Pakistan, where he completed his basic education.
Saifullah then joined the Air Force Academy in Pakistan in 1958 and became a war pilot, and his combat competence was strengthened in 1963 by receiving a training course at an air base in the US state of Arizona, during which he practiced flying with an “F-86 saber”, then returned to fly with the same plane with the Pakistan Air Force In 1963.
Saifullah was appointed as an aviation trainer at the Pakistani base of Moribor in 1963, then participated in the Pakistani-Indian war in 1965 as part of the 17th Squadron that succeeded in carrying out attacks against Indian targets, and was surrounded by two Indian planes in the air and succeeded in shooting down one of them and returning safely to Sargodha Air Force Base, and after the war he was promoted Commander of the 2nd Squadron of the Pakistan Air Force in 1966.
In Jordan and Iraq
At the end of 1966, Saifullah was appointed as a seconded adviser to the Royal Jordanian Air Force, to find himself on June 5, 1967 face to face with the Israeli Air Force when four Israeli warplanes bombed the Jordanian air base of Mafraq, shortly after the Egyptian Air Force planes were destroyed in Its air bases.
After the sudden wave of the first attack, the Jordanian pilots, along with Saif Allah, prepared for the next battle, and his comrades responded to the second raid and shot down one of the invading Israeli planes, and others were unable to return to their base and fell inside Israel.
After the Israeli aircraft destroyed a number of Jordanian planes with an attack on the Mafraq air base, Saifullah moved to the Iraqi Air Force, where his name shone in Iraqi airspace, and he was able to shoot down two Israeli air fighters, to register his name in the military history of the region as the first fighter pilot to shoot down four planes Israeli warship within 72 hours only.
Saifullah has received numerous Rewards of Courage from Jordan, Iraq, and Pakistan for his extraordinary skill and bravery in the war.
After the independence of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in 1971, Saifullah was appointed Director of Aviation Security in the Bangladesh Air Force, then he was promoted as Operations Director and Commander of the Dhaka Air Force base in 1977, and retired in 1980, then appointed Director of the Bangladesh Civil Aviation Authority for two terms, then he was elected a member of Parliament The Bengali between 1991 and 1996, and the American army honored him in 2000 by including his name in the list of the 22 best surviving pilots, “List of Living Eagles”.
Great history
Pakistani media and military reports confirm that Saifullah was not the only Pakistani pilot who participated in air battles in the 1967 war, so he remembered that other pilots who worked on various Arab fronts shot down with Saifullah in the 1967 war at least ten Israeli warplanes in those confrontations. Hardship.
Those reports also indicate that Pakistan had a contingent of at least 16 pilots who served as volunteers in Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Iraq in the wars of 1967 and 1973.
It is also remembered that a Pakistani pilot was flying a “MiG-21” in Syria, and during an air battle in the October 1973 war, he shot down an Israeli Mirage, and on the Egyptian front he shot down another Pakistani pilot who was flying an Egyptian “MiG” an Israeli plane ” F-4 “.
In the obituary of Saif Allah al-Azam, the Palestinian embassy in Pakistan said, “He was absent and will not be absent from us except with a body. It was a unique and unique model among the pilots in Islamic countries.”
