The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) is the aerial warfare branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces, tasked primarily with the aerial defence of Pakistan, with a secondary role of providing air support to the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Navy when required, and a tertiary role of providing strategic airlift capability to Pakistan. As of 2024, as per the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the PAF has more than 70,000 active-duty personnel. PAF is the largest Air Force of the Muslim world in terms of aircraft fleet. Its primary mandate and mission is "to provide, in synergy with other inter-services, the most efficient, assured and cost effective aerial defence of Pakistan." Since its establishment in 1947, the PAF has been involved in various combat operations, providing aerial support to the operations and relief efforts of the Pakistani military. Under Article 243, the Constitution of Pakistan appoints the President of Pakistan as the civilian Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The Chief of the Air Staff (CAS), by statute a four-star air officer, is appointed by the President with the consultation and confirmation needed from the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
The insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, also known as the War in North-West Pakistan or Pakistan's war on terror, is an ongoing armed conflict involving Pakistan and Islamist militant groups such as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Jundallah, Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI), TNSM, al-Qaeda, and their Central Asian allies such as the ISIL–Khorasan (ISIL), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, East Turkistan Movement, Emirate of Caucasus, and elements of organized crime. Formerly a war, it is now a low-level insurgency as of 2017.
Pakistan Air Force Base, Minhas is a PAF Airbase located at Attock District, Punjab, Pakistan. It was named in the honour of Pilot Officer Rashid Minhas, who was awarded the Nishan-e-Haider for valor in the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971. Pakistan Aeronautical Complex is located in Minhas Airbase which manufactures aircraft like CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder, PAC MFI-17 Mushshak, Hongdu JL-8. It also rebuilds aircraft like the Dassault Mirage and Chengdu F-7. Currently, PAF Base Minhas is equipped with JF-17 aircraft operated by No.16 Squadron also called "Black Panthers".
Pakistan Air Force Base, Peshawar is an airbase of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) located in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the operational site of the PAF's Northern Air Command, located to the east of Bacha Khan International Airport, which is shared by both civil aviation flights and military flights.
The Pakistani Taliban, formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan, is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current leader is Noor Wali Mehsud, who has publicly pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban share a common ideology with the Afghan Taliban and have assisted them in the 2001–2021 war, but the two groups have separate operation and command structures.
The PNS Mehran attack was an attack/shooting by Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaeda which took place on 22 May 2011, at PNS Mehran, the headquarters of the Pakistan Navy's Naval Air Arm and the most populous Pakistani military installation, located near the PAF's Faisal Air Force Base of Karachi, Sindh.
Ehsanullah Ehsan is a former spokesman of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and later Jamaat-ul-Ahrar. As a spokesperson of the groups, Ehsan would use media campaigns, social media networks and call up local journalists to claim responsibility for terrorist attacks on behalf of the groups. He was initially a spokesman for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). In 2014, he left TTP after he had developed ideological differences with the TTP leadership following the appointment of Fazlullah as the leader of the group. He later co-founded Jamaat-ul-Ahrar and became its spokesman. In 2015, as a spokesman of Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, he condemned Fazlullah-led Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar.
The 2012 Bacha Khan International Airport attack was a coordinated assault on Bacha Khan International Airport and the adjacent Pakistan Air Force Base Peshawar on 22 December 2012 by Tehrik-i-Taliban terrorists in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.
The March 2013 Karachi bombing was a terrorist attack that struck a predominantly Shia area inside Abbas Town, Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town in Karachi, Pakistan on 3 March 2013. At least 48+ people were killed and more than 180+ others injured after a car bomb was detonated outside a Shia mosque, just as locals were leaving after the evening's services. As rescuers gathered to the scene of the bombings, a second blast caused even more destruction. Authorities suspected the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e Jhangvi of being behind the attacks.
Adnan Rashid is a Pakistani cricket umpire and militant commander of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and former junior technician of the Pakistan Air Force. He is the chief of Ansar Al-Aseer, the TTP's unit tasked to free militant prisoners.
Ahrar ul Hind was a militant Islamist group in Pakistan that split from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in February 2014. During peace talks between the Pakistani government and TTP, Ahrar-ul-Hind issued a statement to the media rejecting the talks, and announcing that they would not accept any peace agreement. Following its initial announcement, the group claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in Pakistan, including the Islamabad court attack, before merging into the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar group in August 2014.
On 8 June 2014, 10 militants armed with automatic weapons, a rocket launcher, suicide vests, and grenades attacked Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan. Thirty-six people were killed, including all 10 attackers, and 18 others were wounded. The militant organisation Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) initially claimed responsibility for the attack. According to state media, the attackers were foreigners of Uzbek origin who belonged to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), an Al Qaeda-linked militant organisation that works closely with TTP. The TTP later confirmed that the attack was a joint operation they executed with the IMU, who independently admitted to having supplied personnel for the attack.
Operation Zarb-e-Azb was a joint military offensive conducted by the Pakistan Armed Forces against various militant groups, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, the East Turkestan Islamic Movement and Lashkar-e-Islam. The operation was launched on 15 June 2014 in North Waziristan along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as a renewed effort against militancy in the wake of the 8 June attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, for which the TTP and the IMU claimed responsibility. As of 14 July 2014, the operation internally displaced about 929,859 people belonging to 80,302 families from North Waziristan.
The 2014 Quetta airbase attack occurred on 15 August 2014, when approximately 13 Tehrik-i-Taliban militants attempted to storm two airbases of the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Air Force; PAF Base Samungli and Khalid Airbase, both located in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan. The attack was largely unsuccessful as Pakistani security forces foiled the attempt following a major armed engagement between the two sides which resulted in the deaths of 12 militants, while 12 people were injured, including one attacker and 11 security personnel.
On 16 December 2014, six gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The terrorists, all of whom were foreign nationals, comprising one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans, entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children, killing 149 people including 132 schoolchildren ranging between eight and eighteen years of age, making it the world's fifth deadliest school massacre. Pakistan launched a rescue operation undertaken by the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group (SSG) special forces, who killed all six terrorists and rescued 960 people. In the long term, Pakistan established the National Action Plan to crack down on terrorism.
The 2015 Camp Badaber attack occurred on 18 September 2015, when 14 Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants attempted to storm Camp Badaber, a Pakistan Air Force base located in Badaber, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The attack killed 25–29 security personnel, including Captain Asfandyar Bukhari of the Pakistan Army, who was responding to the attack as part of a quick-reaction force. All 14 militants were killed in combat with Pakistani forces, according to claims by security officials. The attack, claimed by the TTP to be in retaliation for the Pakistan Armed Forces' Operation Zarb-e-Azb, was the first of its kind in its intensity, and the well-armed TTP militants engaged Pakistani forces at Camp Badaber in a protracted battle that resulted in heavier losses than those inflicted in previous attacks on military installations. PAF Camp Badaber is located about 48 kilometres (30 mi) east of the Afghanistan–Pakistan border.
Operation Radd-ul-Fasaad was a combined military operation by the Pakistani military in support of local law enforcement agencies to disarm and eliminate the terrorist sleeper cells across all states of Pakistan, started on 22 February 2017. The operation aimed to eliminate the threat of terrorism, and consolidating the gains of Operation Zarb-e-Azb which was launched in 2014 as a joint military offensive. It was further aimed at ensuring the security of Pakistan's borders. The operation underwent active participation from the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force, Pakistan Navy, Pakistan Police and other Warfare and Civil Armed Forces managed under the Government of Pakistan. More than 375,000 intelligence-based operations had been carried out as of 2021. This operation has been mostly acknowledged after Operation Zarb e Azb.
On September 7, 2023, clashes erupted near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Chitral district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A group of armed fighters affiliated with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) attacked five Pakistani military checkpoints from Afghan territory. The Pakistani military responded to the attack, resulting in casualties on both sides. Four Pakistani soldiers were killed, and according to reports, twelve of the attackers were also killed.
The Mianwali air base attack occurred on November 4th, 2023, Pakistan Air Force's PAF Base M.M. Alam, in Mianwali, Punjab, Pakistan, which was the target of an attack by the jihadist group Tehreek-e-Jihad. The Pakistani Armed Forces repelled the attack, killing all nine attackers during the security operation. However the attack did cause damage to 3 grounded aircraft, but the rest of the aircraft were unharmed. This event heightened national security concerns, as it targeted a critical military installation.
Tehreek-e-Jihad Pakistan is an insurgent Deobandi jihadist group in Pakistan that has gained notoriety for its involvement in attacks on Pakistani military and police targets. The group is believed to have been founded in February 2023 and has claimed violent attacks against Pakistani police, security, and military installations in various provinces of Pakistan.
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan [2] 
