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In the 1967 Six-Day Arab-Israeli War, a Bengali pilot etched his name in history with unparalleled bravery. Flight Lieutenant Saiful Azam, serving with the Pakistan Air Force and fighting for Jordan and Iraq, shot down Israeli warplanes, earning him prestigious honors from Jordan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and cementing his legacy as a pride of Bangladesh.
On June 5, 1967, Israel launched an attack on Jordan’s Mafraq airbase after nearly annihilating the Egyptian Air Force. Amid this assault, Saiful Azam, piloting a Hunter jet, pursued an Israeli Mystère aircraft, shooting it down with precision and damaging another. Low on fuel and ammunition, he returned to Mafraq.
Two days later, on June 7, at Iraq’s H-3 airbase, Saiful Azam led Iraqi Hunter jets in a fierce counteroffensive against an Israeli attack. He destroyed two Israeli Mirage jets, while his comrades downed two others. For these extraordinary feats, he was awarded Jordan’s ‘Wisam al-Istiqlal,’ Iraq’s ‘Nut al-Shujat,’ and Pakistan’s ‘Sitara-e-Basalat.’ Earlier, in the 1965 Indo-Pak War, he had received the ‘Sitara-e-Jurat’ for downing an Indian warplane.
In 1972, Saiful Azam returned to Bangladesh and joined the newly formed Bangladesh Air Force. In 2001, he was honored with the ‘Living Eagle’ title and inducted into the prestigious ‘International Hall of Fame.’ Air Commodore Mohammad Ali, in Pakistan Air Force’s magazine Second to None, noted that Saiful Azam served in the air forces of four countries—Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, and Bangladesh—and shot down warplanes of two nations, India and Israel.
After retiring, he entered politics and was elected a Member of Parliament from Pabna. Renowned Bangladeshi military analyst Brigadier Shahidul Inam Khan wrote that Saiful Azam’s courage was even praised in Israel. During the 1967 war, he targeted an Israeli jet’s tail to disable it, sparing the pilot, who safely parachuted. The Israeli pilot later recounted that Saiful Azam, after waving at him mid-air, proceeded to destroy another Israeli jet. He could have killed the pilot but chose not to. Following Saiful’s death in June 2020, Israeli newspapers published special reports celebrating his valor.
Though the Six-Day War reshaped the Middle East with Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, Gaza, Sinai, and the West Bank, Saiful Azam’s heroic contributions remain immortalized in history. He stands as a symbol of Bangladesh’s pride and a unique warrior on the global stage.
AI/MR
