Iraqi Air Force

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Iraqi Air Force

Lineup 1931
Country Flag of Iraq.svg
Type Armed forces ( air forces )
Strength 1,600 military personnel
(as of 2008)
Location Baghdad
Butcher Military coup in Iraq 1941
Palestine
War Six Day War
Yom Kippur War
First Gulf War
Second Gulf War
Uprising in Iraq Iraq
War
insignia
Aircraft cockade Roundel of Iraq.svg

The Iraqi Air Force (IQAF) is a branch of the Iraqi armed forces . Since the Iraq war in 2003, the subsequent occupation of Iraq and the associated complete dissolution, the Iraqi air force is facing reconstruction. The current commander in chief of the Iraqi Air Force is Lieutenant General Anwer Hamad Amin Ahmad.

de Havilland Venom
MiG-21
Map of the air raids by the Iraqi Air Force in the First Gulf War

Beginnings

The Iraqi Air Force (RIAF) was created in 1931 from the Royal Air Force in the British Mandate Mesopotamia , which exercised control over the Mandate with the Air Force. After the independence of the Kingdom of Iraq in 1932, the RIAF had only a few pilots trained in London to fly British aircraft. The Iraqi Air Force received its first own aircraft, 25 Italian Breda Ba.65 , four Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 and 15 Gloster Gladiator aircraft from 1938 to 1942.

Military holdings

Raschid Ali al-Gailani was a coup d' état as Prime Minister of Iraq on April 2, 1941. On May 3, 1941, the Royal Air Force bombed the Hinaida Air Force Base near Baghdad with Wellington bombers, Gloster Gladiator and Hawker Hurricane fighters, destroying a total of 20 Iraqi machines. At that time, the Iraqi Air Force had 56 aircraft spread across three bases: Mosul , Hinaida and Zubair . Gailani asked National Socialist Germany for military support, which then took the form of a two-week short deployment of a special staff F squadron .

From August to September 1945 the Iraqi air force participated in the bombing of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq against the rebels of Mustafa Barzani .

The Kingdom of Iraq declared war on Israel in the 1948 Palestinian War, but the Iraqi Air Force was not very involved in the war. In the 1950s, the Iraqi Air Force received 15 British de Havilland DH.112 Venom and from 1964 66 Hawker Hunter . After the military coup by the colonels and the establishment of the Republic of Iraq in 1958, the Royal Air Force (RIAF) was renamed the Iraqi Air Force (IQAF). Military support was now also provided by the Soviet Union , which provided the training and command structures. 35 MiG-17s were the first fighter aircraft that Iraq got from the Soviet Union in early 1960.

It was not until the Six Day War of 1967 that Iraqi aircraft were again involved in combat operations. The Israeli Air Force launched attacks on the H-3 airfield . The Iraqi Air Force fought with British Hawker Hunters and twelve Soviet IL-28s .

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War , the Iraqi Air Force was involved with 15 aircraft. Eleven of the deployed Hawker Hunters were lost.

Armament

With the rise of the Ba'ath Party , the Iraqi air force was rearmed in 1968. MiG-19 , Su-7 (98 copies from 1968), MiG-21 (up to 100 copies), Su-17 , Su-22 , MiG-23 (from 1974), Su-24 (24 copies) and type bombers Tu-22 (twelve copies up to 1979) and Su-25 (73 copies) from Soviet production were delivered.

First Gulf War

The Iraqi Air Force reached the climax of its military power through an increase in the inventory despite the fighting in the First Gulf War. France in particular initially supplied modern Mirage F1 fighter aircraft, including the associated air-to-air missiles. Through training on French aircraft by French instructors, the Iraqi Air Force also adopted French aerial combat tactics in early 1983.

The surprise attack planned by the Iraqi air force, similar to the one carried out by the Israeli air force in the six-day war against Egypt, in which the majority of the Egyptian aircraft were destroyed on the first day of the fight, failed. The complex causes of the failure, such as inaccurate bomb hits, hardened hangars of the Iranians, air defenses, etc., do not yet take into account the hesitant approach of the Iraqi armed forces in general. During the first few weeks of the war, the Iraqi Air Force was unable to achieve air sovereignty against the few but highly effective F-14 fighter jets of the Iranian Air Force. The fact that the attempt to destroy the Iranian air force failed right from the start should only prove to be a disadvantage for the Iraqis in the first years of the war. The systematic upgrading of the Iraqi air force with, among other things, Mirage F1 combat aircraft ultimately led to an air superiority for the Iraqi air force from the war year 1984.

List of major combat aircraft delivered during the First Gulf War:

country specification description delivery number
France Mirage F-1C Fighter plane 1982-1990 72
France Mirage F-1E Fighter plane 1980-1982 36
France Super Etendard Fighter plane 1983 5
Soviet Union MiG-21bis (Fishbed-N) Fighter plane 1983-1984 61
Soviet Union MiG-23BN (Flogger-H) Fighter plane 1984-1985 50
Soviet Union MiG-25P (Foxbat-A) Fighter plane 1980-1985 55
Soviet Union MiG-25RB (Foxbat-B) Fighter plane 1982 8th
Soviet Union MiG-29 (Fulcrum-A) Fighter plane 1986-1989 41
Soviet Union Su-22 (Fitter-H / -J / -K) Fighter plane 1986-1987 61
Soviet Union Sukhoi Su-25 Ground attack aircraft 1986-1987 84
Soviet Union Tupolev Tu-22 Bomb plane until 1974 28
People's Republic of China Xian H-6 Bomb plane 1988 4th
People's Republic of China Shenyang F-6 Fighter plane 1982-1983 40
People's Republic of China Chengdu F-7A Fighter plane 1983-1987 80
total 626

The Iraqi Air Force was also responsible for the dropping of over 18,500 chemical weapons in the First Gulf War. On November 18, 1980, near Susangerd, mustard gas was dropped for the first time by Iraqi aircraft at low altitude from 200 to 300 meters in canisters over Iranian positions. By 1983 at the latest, tabun and other irritants were thrown into enemy positions as weapons. The poison gas attack on Sardasht on June 28, 1987 and the poison gas attack on Halabja on March 16, 1988 during Operation Anfal , also showed the world public the use of poison gas against the civilian population by the Iraqi air force.

The conquest of Kuwait led to the Second Gulf War in 1991.

Second Gulf War

Destroyed MiG-29 after Operation Desert Storm, 1991

List of major fighter aircraft before the Second Gulf War (August 1990):

specification Type number
MiG-21
Chengdu J-7 		Fighter plane 236
MiG-23 Fighter plane 127
MiG-25 Fighter plane 35
MiG-29 Fighter plane 41
Mirage F1 Fighter plane 94
Su-20 / Su-22 Fighter bomber 121
Su-24 bomber 30th
Su-25 Ground attack aircraft 66
Tu-22
H-6D 		bomber 7th
total 757

After the annexation of Kuwait and the fighting that followed during the Second Gulf War, the number of Iraqi aircraft decimated. 36 Iraqi planes and six helicopters were shot down by the Allies in the air, 68 Iraqi planes and 13 helicopters were destroyed on the ground. The Iraqi pilots had little chance of countering the latest western technology. Two Allied aircraft were shot down by the Iraqi Air Force and three others were damaged. Shortly after the start of the fighting, Saddam Hussein had 137 aircraft flown into Iran to protect it from destruction. Iran has partially integrated these aircraft into its air force (Su-24, Su-25, MiG-29) and is refusing to return them

No-fly zone from 1991-2003

List of major combat aircraft after the Second Gulf War (March 1991):

specification Type number
MiG-21
Chengdu J-7 		Fighter plane 115
MiG-23 Fighter plane 63
MiG-25 Fighter plane 10
MiG-29 Fighter plane 16
Mirage F1 Fighter plane 37
Su-20 / Su-22 Fighter bomber 55
Su-24 bomber 1
Su-25 Ground attack aircraft 20th
Tu-22
H-6D 		bomber 0
total 317

After the Second Gulf War (1991) and the Shiite and Kurdish uprising , a no-fly zone was established north of the 36th parallel and south of the 33rd parallel. Compliance with the no-fly zone was monitored by Operation Northern Watch and Operation Southern Watch . Iraqi Air Force planes were not allowed to fly in these zones.

Iraq war

MiG-25 recovered from the sand

For the period after the Second Gulf War (1991) and before the start of the Iraq War (2003) there are hardly any reliable sources about the number of airworthy / operational aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force. The no-fly zone did the rest to restrict flight operations. An attack on Saddam Hussein on September 30, 2002 by an Iraqi air force pilot in a MiG-23 who deviated from the flight path during an exercise and wanted to bomb Saddam Hussein's palace, resulted in the last major purge of the Iraqi air force.

The Iraqi Air Force did not record a single deployment in the Iraq war . Saddam Hussein's decision was to keep the Iraqi air force completely out of the fighting and to spare it for “future tasks”. For this purpose, the aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force were removed from their bases two months before the start of the war and hidden in palm groves or buried in the desert sand.

The Iraq war led to the complete dissolution of the structures of the Iraqi air force. Warplanes, bombers, etc. a. were either destroyed, confiscated or made unusable in the air raids. Only a few transport planes and light helicopters were the remnants of Saddam Hussein's once powerful aircraft fleet.

An-32 of the new Iraqi Air Force, 2011
C-130 of the new Iraqi Air Force

New beginning

The new Iraqi Air Force was still being rebuilt in 2013 and did not have any jet-powered combat aircraft. F-16 fighter aircraft, however, were to be made available to the US Air Force. When IS started its offensive in Iraq in mid-2014, the new Iraqi air force actually had three propeller-powered Cessna AC-208 combat aircraft that had been armed with American Hellfire missiles. In view of the advance of IS, Iraq forced the reconstruction of its air force. In July 2014, the Iraqi armed forces reportedly received their first delivery of five used Russian Sukhoi Su-25 fighter aircraft . The official handover of the first F-16 C fighter aircraft has now also taken place. Iraq claims that it first used the F-16 against IS in September 2015.

List of aircraft of the Iraqi Air Force (as of September 2015)
specification description Number
* planned
F-16 C Fighter plane 4 + 32 planned *
Su-25 Ground attack aircraft 12
Aero L-159 Ground attack aircraft 2 + 13 planned *
An-32 Cargo plane 6th
C-130 E Transport plane 3 + 6 planned *
AMD Alarus Training aircraft 8th
King Air 350/360 Training aircraft 6th
Lasta 95 Training aircraft 20th
T-6 A Training aircraft 15th
Cessna 208 Feeder aircraft 6th
Seabird Seeker Light aircraft 2
SA 342 helicopter 6th

Sources: flightglobal.com, hurriyetdailynews.com, zeit.de and n-tv

Web links

Commons : Iraqi Air Force  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexandra Zavis: latimes.com, Iraq's air force taking to the skies again, accessed on January 4, 2013
  2. ↑ dodig.mil ( Memento from September 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 45 kB) Biography, accessed on January 4, 2013
  3. ↑ airminded.org (picture Hinaida airfield), accessed on January 7, 2013
  4. ↑ Hinaida is today's Al-Rashid Air Force Base
  5. ↑ a b c d Tom Cooper : Iraqi Air Force Since 1948. Retrieved January 4, 2013
  6. ↑ Martin Gilbert (Ed.): The Arab-Israeli conflict. Its history in maps. 3rd edition, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1979, ISBN 978-0-297-77592-8 , pp. 91-92.
  7. ↑ Russian tactics were more reserved, while French tactics were more aggressive forms of aerial combat. Compare: Tom Cooper
  8. ^ Henner Fürtig : The Iraqi-Iranian War. Akademie Verlag GmbH, 1992, ISBN 3-05-001905-0 .
  9. ↑ Kenneth Pollack: Arabs at War. Lincoln, 2002, pp. 184-186.
  10. ^ Arms Transfers Database, TIV of arms imports to Iraq, 1980–1988 , Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
  11. ↑ sipri.org: CHEMICAL WARFARE IN THE IRAQ-IRAN WAR ( Memento from May 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 899 kB), accessed on January 6, 2013
  12. ^ Institute for Defense Analyzes Alexandria: Iraqi Perspectives Project Phase II. Retrieved January 4, 2013
  13. ^ Sadiq / McCain: The Gulf War Aftermath. Springer 1993, ISBN 978-0-7923-2278-8 , pp. 165 ff
  14. ↑ a b defense.gov: The Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm ( Memento of March 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on January 4, 2013
  15. ↑ safarikovi.org: victories-iraq-gulf (PDF; 122 kB) accessed on January 4, 2013
  16. ↑ and justified this with reparation payments from Iraq.
  17. ^ Institut for Defense Analyzes Alexandria: Iraqi Perspectives Project Phase II. Retrieved January 4, 2013
  18. ↑ The aircraft was shot down by a Republican Guard anti- aircraft missile . The officers at the base were subjected to lengthy interrogations, and the pilot was finally burned in front of the staff at the base. Compare: Walter Posch
  19. ^ Walter Posch : Iraq under Saddam Hussein. (PDF; 1.7 MB) accessed on January 4, 2013
  20. ^ Mahnken / Keaney: War in Iraq. Routledge 2007, ISBN 978-0-415-42075-4 , p. 23.
  21. ↑ spiegel.de: USA are planning fighter jet deal with Iraq, accessed on January 4, 2013
  22. ↑ ntv on August 5, 2014: Iraq's Air Force is "dangerous" - Maliki's Rumble Air Force
  23. ↑ With old fighter jets against ISIS ( Memento from July 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), www.tagesschau.de on June 29, 2014
  24. ↑ Iraq Has Brand New F-16s, But Can't Use Them Against ISIS Yet , ibtimes.com on June 12, 2014 (Eng.)
  25. ↑ a b Iraq uses F-16s against IS for the first time. n-tv on September 7, 2015
  26. ^ "World Air Forces 2013". Archived from the original on November 2, 2013 ; accessed on March 25, 2020 . , Flightglobal.com, December 11, 2012.
  27. ↑ First batch of US F-16 Jets delivered to Iraq , Daily News, July 13, 2015 (Eng.)
  28. ↑ Albania and the Czech Republic deliver weapons to Iraq. AFP, August 28, 2014, archived from the original on September 4, 2014 ; accessed on August 28, 2014 .