Less than a week into the new year, after a meeting between Pakistan’s Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar Sidhu and his Bangladeshi counterpart Air Chief Marshal Hasan Mahmood Khan, the Pakistani military announced that a deal to sell its domestically produced JF-17 Thunder fighter jet could be imminent.
A statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the military’s media wing, said Khan praised the Pakistan Air Force’s combat record and sought assistance to support the Bangladesh Air Force’s “ageing fleet and integration of air defence radar systems to enhance air surveillance”. Alongside a promise of fast-tracked delivery of Super Mushshak trainer aircraft, the statement, issued on January 6, added that “detailed discussions were also held on potential procurement of JF-17 Thunder aircraft.”
The Super Mushshak is a light-weight, two-to-three seater, single-engine plane with fixed, non-retractable, tricycle landing gear. The plane is primarily used for training purposes. Besides Pakistan, more than 10 countries currently have deployed the plane in their fleet for pilot training, including Azerbaijan, Turkiye, Iran, Iraq and others.
Just a day later, it was reported by the Reuters news agency that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were in talks to convert about $2bn of Saudi loans into a JF-17 fighter jet deal, further strengthening military cooperation between the two longtime allies. The discussions come only months after they signed a mutual defence pact in September last year. Both developments followed reports in late December that Pakistan had reached a $4bn deal with a rebel faction in Libya, the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), including the sale of more than a dozen JF-17 Thunder jets.
While the Pakistani military has yet to formally confirm any agreement with Libya or Saudi Arabia, and Bangladesh has so far only expressed “interest” rather than signing a contract, analysts say events in 2025 have boosted the JF-17’s appeal.
However, the relatively cheap price of the plane, estimated at $25m-$30m, has meant that several countries in the last 10 years have shown interest in it, with Nigeria, Myanmar and Azerbaijan already having the jet in their fleets. And recent events have bolstered the reputation of Pakistan’s air fighting capabilities, say analysts. In May, India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day air war, firing missiles and drones at each other’s territories, parts of Kashmir that they administer, and at military bases, after gunmen shot down 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan, which denied any link to the attack.
Pakistan said it shot down several Indian fighter jets during the aerial combat, a claim Indian officials later acknowledged after initially denying any losses, but without specifying the number of jets downed. “The PAF demonstrated superior performance against much more expensive Western and Russian systems, which has made these aircraft an attractive option for several air forces,” Adil Sultan, a former Pakistan Air Force air commodore, said.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has traditionally relied on French Mirage-2000 and Russian Su-30 jets, but in the 2025 fighting also used French Rafale jets.Pakistan, for its part, relied on its recently imported Chinese J-10C Vigorous Dragon and the JF-17 Thunder as well as the United States’ F-16 Fighting Falcon jets, with 42 planes in the formation that took on 72 IAF planes, according to the PAF.
The JF-17 Thunder is a lightweight, all-weather, multi-role fighter aircraft jointly manufactured by the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) and China’s Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC). Pakistan and China signed an agreement in the late 1990s to develop the aircraft, with work beginning in the early 2000s at the PAC in Kamra, situated in Pakistan’s Punjab province, just more than 80km (50 miles) away from the capital, Islamabad.
Source: Here