The United States may supply Pakistan with AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, as indicated by a recent arms contract notification from the Department of War.
Pakistan may receive advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles AIM-120 (AMRAAM) from the United States, PTI reported, after an arms contract deal was recently notified by the United States Department of War (DoW), initially known as the Department of Defence.
The contract notification listed Pakistan among the buyers of AIM-120 AMRAAM, along with other nations. The arms deal may cost Pakistan, whose economy is already in doll-drums and dependent on IMF’s bailout, a whopping $41.6 billion.
If this deal takes place, it may raise questions about America’s foreign policy of arming a terror-sponsor state with advanced weapons and expose its double standards in lecturing other nations.
Full list of nations as clients for US’ AMRAAM Missiles
Apart from Pakistan, several other countries have been mentioned on the US DoW’s notification. These include: UK, Poland, Germany, Finland, Australia, Romania, Qatar, Oman, Korea, Greece, Switzerland, Portugal, Singapore, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Japan, Slovakia, Denmark, Canada, Belgium, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Norway, Spain, Kuwait, Finland, Sweden, Taiwan, Lithuania, Israel, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey.”
The order for these Air-to-Air missiles is expected to be completed by the end of May 2030.
What is AMRAAM Air-to-Air Missile?
- It’s an air-to-air missile, can hit targets upto a range of 20 kms to over 160 km, depending on the variant and generation.
- It works on an active radar homing which means it can guide itself to the target after launch.
- It’s a supersonic missile and can hit target with a speed of Mach 4+.
- It can carry high-explosive fragmentation and can be launched with fighter jets like F-15, F-16, F/A-18, F-22, F-35, and NATO aircraft.
According to the defence publication Quwa, the AIM-120C8 is the export version of the AIM-120D, the main AMRAAM variant in US service.
In Pakistan Air Force (PAF) service, the AMRAAM is compatible exclusively with the F-16 fighter jet and was reportedly used to shoot down the Indian Air Force MiG-21 flown by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in February 2019, according to the newspaper.
Notably, PAF Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar visited the US State Department in July.
The PAF currently operates the earlier C5 variant, 500 of which were acquired alongside its latest Block 52 F-16s in 2010, the paper said.
