KARACHI:
An arms contract recently notified by the United States Department of War (DoW), formerly Department of Defense, lists Pakistan among the buyers for AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), it emerged on Tuesday.
With this, Pakistan Air Force inches closer to receiving additional missile stocks under United States President Donald Trump’s administration.
According to the US DoW, Raytheon — the manufacturer of the AMRAAM — was given a modification (P00026) of over $41.6 million on a “previously awarded contract (FA8675-23-C-0037)” to “firm-fixed-price” for the production of the missile’s C8 and D3 variants.
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The modification, which includes Pakistan among its foreign military sales recipients, raises the total value of the contract to over $2.51 billion.
“This contract involves foreign military sales to United Kingdom, Poland, Pakistan, 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, Isreal, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Turkey,” the notification states. It adds that work on the order is expected to be completed by end of May 2030.
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Although it remains unclear as to exactly how many, if any, new AMRAAM missiles will be delivered to Pakistan, the development has triggered speculation about potential upgrades to the Pakistan Air Force’s F-16 fleet.
In PAF service, the AMRAAM is compatible exclusively with the F-16 fighter jet and is believed to have been used to shoot down the Indian Air Force MiG-21 flown by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman during Operation Swift Retort in February 2019. Notably, PAF Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Babar visited the US State Department in July this year.
According to the defence publication Quwa, the AIM-120C8 is the export version of the AIM-120D, the main AMRAAM variant in US service. The PAF currently operates the earlier C5 variant, 500 of which were acquired alongside its latest Block 52 F-16s in 2010.
