In the June 1967 War, Saif ul-Azam claimed and received credit for shooting down three Israeli jets. But his statements continue to be “unclear.”
Saif ul-Azam, a highly decorated former pilot of the Pakistan Air Force and afterward the Bangladesh Air Force who served during the Arab-Israeli War in June 1967, passed away, according to Al Jazeera.
For those to whom his name might ‘not ring any bells’, or ‘too few to recall’….
During the War of June 1967, Mr. Azam claimed and received credit for shooting down three Israeli jets. As a result, he received numerous awards from Pakistan, Jordan, and Iraq (the latter decorated him for his 1 confirmed kill during the September 1965 Indo-Pakistani War).
His 1967 statements, however, are still ‘unclear. Nevertheless, he is by no means the only pilot who has engaged in air combat there, and he is surely not the only one to have achieved kills. He is simply the “best known” in the West as a result of Pakistani propaganda.
To make sure: ‘Mr. Azam, may he rest in peace, was also humble enough to stress this, in an interview I had with him, about 10 years ago.’
His Jordanian wingman Ihsam Shurdom also claimed one kill over Jordan on June 5, 1967, and the Israelis acknowledge just one loss. Who then made that kill? Shurdom or Azam?
That remains unclear until this very day.
On June 7, 1967, over Iraq, not only did Azam claim two kills, but also Azam’s Jordanian wingman and Samir Yousif Zainal, one of two Iraqi pilots there. Each and every one of them received a decoration for two kills and was given credit for two kills. The Israelis only lost 3 or 4 jets, not 6, as a result. So, again: ‘who scored what kill….?’
Another ambiguity:
‘Nobody – especially no Pakistanis – has ever seriously cross-examined all these claims before Mrs. Patricia Salti’s and my related book HAWKER HUNTERS AT WAR has been published, four years ago. BTW, and so typically, the Pakistanis never talk about Mr. Azam’s subsequent career: he was forced to leave the PAF in 1971 because he was a Bengali. That’s why he then went over to Bangladesh and served with the local air force instead.’
‘(I would like to stress once again, this is NO attempt to lessen Mr. Azam’s achievements or skills as a pilot, or any other kind of disrespect: just a reminder that such instances like al-Jazeera are all wrong in regard to Mr. Azam. There is only one pilot to have 4 confirmed claims against the Israelis during the June 1967 War. That was Mohammed Mansour, a Syrian MiG-21-flier, whose story I’ve told in one of my earlier posts. Mansour did score 4, perhaps even 4.5, and undeniably confirmed kills. …if there is any disrespect, then on the part of the US troops, which looted the Memorial Room of the former Iraqi Air Force‘s Intelligence Directorate, back in April 2003, smashed the wing of an Israeli Mirage shot down by Azam, Shurdom and/or Zainal, took away the helmet of one of the downed Israeli pilots, and sent it to Israel… or all those ‘Arabs’ who are commemorating Mr. Azam while being entirely clueless about Zainal or Shurdom. BTW, Zainal was forced to leave Iraq due to the Ba’athist coup of 1969: he fled to Syria, joined the air force there, and was killed during the October 1973 War with Israel, while in command of a MiG-17-squadron of the Syrian Arab Air Force).’
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Photo by Bangladesh Air Force and RuthAS via Wikipedia