The Secret Mission: Pakistani Pilots in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War

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It was October 1973, during the holy month of Ramadan, and Israel was unleashing devastation upon the Palestinians. Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, made an extraordinary decision—he dispatched 16 highly trained Pakistan Air Force pilots to assist in the war against Israel.

This mission was extremely secretive. The pilots were informed that if they were martyred or captured, the Pakistani government would not take responsibility for them. Bhutto had already taken Syrian President Hafez al-Assad into confidence and shared the entire plan with him. The Pakistani pilots first secretly arrived in Baghdad, and then were moved covertly to the Dumayr military airbase near Damascus. Of the 16, eight brave Pakistani pilots were sent on to Egypt.

The Syrian Air Force assigned the Pakistani unit the identity of Squadron 67A, and exactly 36 hours after Bhutto’s decision, the Pakistani pilots were in the cockpits of old Soviet-made MiG-21 F-13 aircraft.

The city of Damascus had already been devastated by bombing raids from Israel’s advanced Mirage III and F-4 Phantom jets. In anticipation of any unforeseen developments, an Israeli air fleet of 32 aircraft patrolled the skies over Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea. The Pakistani jets were outdated and worn out, with only enough fuel for 30 minutes of flight. Intelligence support was almost nonexistent. The Indians got wind of the operation and began assisting the Israeli military in targeting the Pakistani pilots, making the situation extremely tense.

One day, a Pakistani aircraft took off from the Damascus airbase—an old MiG-21—only to be surrounded by two modern Israeli Mirage jets. A fierce dogfight erupted in Syrian skies. The Israeli pilots, seeing what they assumed was an easy target, pounced, but what they encountered wasn’t prey—it was a hunter. The Pakistani pilot, Air Commodore Abdul Sattar Alvi, counterattacked and fired a K-13 missile, destroying one Israeli jet. Fuel was running low—otherwise, this brave soldier from Bhutto’s Pakistan might have downed the second aircraft as well. Pakistani pilots continued to strike fear into Israeli skies, while thousands of miles away in Islamabad, Bhutto smiled.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a passionate supporter of Palestine. He once boldly challenged Moshe Dayan, saying, “We’ll take your other eye too.” Bhutto made Palestine an issue dear to every Pakistani’s heart, to the point where people began naming their children Nasser, Yasser, Faisal, Saddam, and Qaddafi. It was a golden era of Arab nationalism. Bhutto taught the Arab world how to use oil as a weapon against the West. He invited Yasser Arafat to Pakistan as Palestine’s representative, after which the world began recognizing Arafat as the official voice of Palestine. Later, Yasser Arafat visited Bhutto’s tomb in Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, Larkana, to pay tribute to the martyred leader.