Every war the Iraqi Air Force has fought
Many claims in this record are one side’s own: Iraq’s 21 Israeli fighters in 1973, the opposing Iranian and Iraqi accounts of the H-3 raid of 1981, and Iraqi kill claims in 1991 beyond the loss of Lt Cdr Scott Speicher’s F/A-18; each is given with the side that makes it. The chemical attack on Halabja on 16 March 1988, carried out by Iraqi aircraft, was found a genocidal massacre by Iraq’s Supreme Criminal Tribunal in 2010. The toll of the Camp Speicher massacre of 2014 ranges from 1,095 missing, the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry’s count, to about 1,700, the Islamic State’s claim. Where a consolidated sortie or loss figure exists in the official record it is given here; where accounts disagree, the range is shown and the disagreement named. Blank cells are blank because no figure could be verified, not because the fighting was small.
From the Kurdish north in 1931 to the Islamic State cells of today.
| Conflicto | Años | Contra | Avión principal | Salidas | Avión perdido | |
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| Operations against Kurdish insurgentsBarzanRoyal Iraqi Air Force | 1931–1932 | Kurdish insurgents | Gipsy Moth, DH.60 | — | 1 | |
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First combat, in support of the army against Kurdish insurgents. The air force was in combat within six months of its founding, flying light de Havilland trainers against Kurdish insurgents in the north from October 1931. Its first loss came in April 1932, when a DH.60 struck a mountain near Barzan and both crew were killed. The account is from Wikipedia’s history of the service; casualties on the ground were not found in the sources checked. Resultado Part of the wider campaign in the north. Single source; ground casualties not documented.
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| Anglo-Iraqi Warthe siege of HabbaniyaRoyal Iraqi Air Force | 1941 | Reino Unido | Gladiador, SM.79, Breda Ba.65y 2 más | — | — | |
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Attacked RAF Habbaniya and British forces in support of Rashid Ali’s government. When Iraqi troops surrounded RAF Habbaniya at the end of April 1941, the air force joined in. On 2 May its aircraft attacked the base, destroying two Audaxes and an Oxford on the ground, and an Iraqi Gladiator damaged a Wellington so badly that it force-landed near Baghdad. The RAF struck back at the Iraqi airfields the same day; Wikipedia says 22 Iraqi aircraft were destroyed on the ground near Baghdad on 2 May alone. German aircraft of Fliegerführer Irak and a dozen Italian CR.42s arrived via Syria in mid and late May but could not change the outcome. Rashid Ali’s government collapsed on 29 May and an armistice followed on 31 May. Training of new pilots did not restart until six years later. Resultado Defeat; armistice on 31 May 1941 and British occupation until 1947. Iraqi personnel losses in the air force are not documented; Wikipedia’s figure of at least 200 Iraqi dead overall is marked as needing a citation.
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| 1948 Arab-Israeli WarRoyal Iraqi Air Force | 1948–1949 | Israel | Avro Anson, Hawker Fury | — | — | |
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A small contribution: Anson bombers from Transjordan and six Furies sent to Damascus. Still recovering from 1941, the air force played a small part in the first war against Israel. No. 7 Squadron flew Avro Anson training bombers from Transjordan on several attacks against Israeli targets. Six Fury fighters were sent to Damascus but never met an Israeli aircraft; short of cannon ammunition and without bombs, the four that remained were handed over to Egypt in October 1948, according to Wikipedia. Resultado Armistice in 1949. Results of the Anson raids are not documented in the sources checked.
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| Iraqi-Kurdish warsIraqi Air Force | 1961–1975 | Kurdish insurgents | Cazador, MiG-17, MiG-21 | — | — | |
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Air support against Kurdish uprisings. Through the 1960s and the 1970s the air force repeatedly flew against Kurdish uprisings in the north. Wikipedia’s history says it suffered heavy casualties there in the 1970s; numbers of aircraft lost, sorties flown and civilian casualties were not found in the sources checked and are not given here. Resultado Outcome of the individual campaigns not documented in the sources checked. No figures could be verified; aircraft types are those in service at the time, not confirmed type by type for these campaigns.
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| Six-Day Warthe battles over H-3Iraqi Air Force | 1967 | Israel | Cazador de halcones, MiG-21, Tu-16 | — | — | |
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Defended H-3 against Israeli raids and bombed targets in Israel. Israel struck H-3, the air base near the Jordanian border, three times. Wikipedia’s account of the war says the raids destroyed several aircraft on the ground, and that in the third raid on 7 June Hunters flown by Iraqi, Jordanian and Pakistani pilots shot down two Vautours and a Mirage, with three Israeli crew killed and two captured, for the loss of one Hunter. The Pakistani pilot Saiful Azam is credited with two of the kills by Pakistani sources. Iraqi Tu-16s bombed targets in Israel; one was shot down near Megiddo, and Wikipedia says its crash killed its crew and 16 Israeli soldiers. Iraqi Hunter pilots were officially credited by Iraq with four Israeli aircraft. Resultado Iraq’s role ended with the ceasefire; Israel won the war. Kill claims are each side’s own unless stated; Israeli and Iraqi accounts of the H-3 battles differ.
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| Yom Kippur War (October War)Iraqi Air Force | 1973 | Israel | Cazador de halcones, MiG-21 | — | — | |
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Squadrons sent to Egypt and Syria; Hunters took part in the first Egyptian air strike in Sinai. Before the war Iraq had sent 12 Hunters to Egypt. When the war began on 6 October 1973, Iraqi aircraft were part of the first air strike on Israeli positions in Sinai, and Iraq claimed to have destroyed 21 Israeli fighters in air combat during the war. Wikipedia’s history of the service says only one of the Hunters survived. Casualty figures for the Iraqi expeditionary forces as a whole are 278 dead, 898 wounded and 13 captured. Resultado Ceasefire in late October 1973. The 21 claimed kills are an Iraqi claim and were not independently confirmed. Which other Iraqi types fought in 1973 was not confirmed in the sources checked.
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| Iran-Iraq Warthe First Gulf WarIraqi Air Force | 1980–1988 | Irán | MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25y 5 más | — | — | |
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Strategic bombing, close support, air defence and anti-shipping strikes for eight years. Iraq opened the war on 22 September 1980 with 166–192 aircraft against ten Iranian air bases, an attack Wikipedia says damaged infrastructure but did not destroy the Iranian air force. Iran retaliated the next day and raided H-3 in April 1981. Iraq then rebuilt with French Mirage F1s and Soviet MiG-25s, MiG-29s, Su-24s and Su-25s, growing from 332 aircraft to about 1,029. In the tanker war its Exocet-armed aircraft attacked ships trading with Iran; on 17 May 1987 two Exocets hit the USS Stark, killing 37. Iraq apologised, saying the pilot took the frigate for an Iranian tanker. In the war of the cities Tu-22s and other bombers struck Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz. On 16 March 1988 Iraqi aircraft carried out the chemical attack on Halabja, which killed 3,200–5,000 people; Iraq’s Supreme Criminal Tribunal found it a genocidal massacre in 2010. Resultado Ceasefire in 1988. Air-to-air claims (for example the MiG-25 pilot Mohammed Rayyan’s ten kills) are Iraqi claims. The aircraft that hit the Stark was identified by CENTCOM as a Mirage F1, but later reports say a modified Falcon 50. Iraq first denied Halabja and blamed Iran.
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| Gulf WarOperación Tormenta del DesiertoIraqi Air Force | 1991 | United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, France, Kuwait and other coalition states | MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25y 5 más | — | — | |
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Attempted air defence against the US-led coalition; most aircraft sheltered, were destroyed or fled to Iran. At the start of the war Iraq had about 750 combat aircraft on 24 primary airfields with 594 hardened shelters. The coalition destroyed it in the air, on the ground and in its shelters. Iraqi pilots claimed a handful of kills: Wikipedia credits Lt Zuhair Dawood’s MiG-25 with the US Navy F/A-18 of Lt Cdr Scott Speicher on 17 January, and lists Iraqi claims against an RAF Tornado and a US EF-111. From late January, about 137 aircraft — Wikipedia lists 24 Mirage F1s, 40 Su-22s, 24 Su-24s, 7 Su-25s and 15 Il-76s among them — flew to Iran, which interned them and later treated them as reparations for the 1980–1988 war. Iraq said it sent them for safety. Resultado Defeat; Iraq withdrew from Kuwait. Figures for aircraft flown to Iran vary from 115 to about 140 in Wikipedia’s own articles. Iraqi kill claims beyond the Speicher loss are disputed.
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| No-fly zones conflictNorthern and Southern WatchIraqi Air Force | 1991–2003 | Estados Unidos y Reino Unido | MiG-25, MiG-23, Su-22 | — | 4 | |
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Challenged US and British patrols over the no-fly zones. After 1991 the coalition imposed no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq. The remnant air force occasionally challenged them: on 27 December 1992 a US F-16 shot down a MiG-25 with an AIM-120, the F-16’s first air-to-air kill, and Wikipedia lists one MiG-23 and two Su-22s as also lost. On 23 December 2002 a MiG-25 shot down a US RQ-1 Predator. Iraq stated that 1,400 civilians were killed by coalition bombing during the period; the UN reported 144 civilians killed in 1999 alone. Resultado Ended with the 2003 invasion. The figure of 1,400 civilians is Iraq’s claim; the 1999 figure is the UN’s.
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| 2003 invasion of IraqIraqi Air Force | 2003 | United States, United Kingdom and coalition partners | — | 0 | — | |
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Did not fight; aircraft were dispersed, hidden or buried. Wikipedia says the air force was effectively absent during the invasion: a few helicopters were seen but no fighters rose to meet coalition aircraft, and Saddam Hussein had ordered much of the fighter fleet dismantled and buried. Several dozen aircraft, MiG-25s among them, were dug up in 2003; one went to the National Museum of the United States Air Force. On 23 May 2003 Coalition Provisional Authority Order 2 dissolved the army, air force, navy and air defence force. Resultado The air force was dissolved by the Coalition Provisional Authority on 23 May 2003.
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| War against the Islamic StateIraqi Air Force | 2014–2017 | Estado Islámico | F-16IQ, Su-25, L-159y 2 más | 3,562 | — | |
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Close support and strike with Su-25s, AC-208s, F-16s and L-159s alongside the US-led coalition. AC-208s had begun firing Hellfires at insurgents in Anbar in January 2014. When the Islamic State took Mosul in June 2014, the new F-16s were still in the United States and contractors left Balad. Iraq bought Su-25s from Russia and Belarus and received seven from Iran on 1 July. On 12 June the Islamic State murdered air force cadets at Camp Speicher near Tikrit; the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry counted 1,095 missing, while IS claimed about 1,700. Iraqi F-16s reached Balad in July 2015 and L-159s arrived in November 2015, flying at Fallujah and Mosul in 2016. Wikipedia credits the Su-25s with 3,562 missions before Iraq declared victory in December 2017. Resultado Iraq declared victory over the Islamic State in December 2017. The air force’s total sorties, losses and civilian casualties from Iraqi strikes were not found in official or independent sources checked.
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| Islamic State insurgencyIraqi Air Force | 2017–present | Estado Islámico | F-16IQ, L-159, Su-25 | — | — | |
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Strikes against Islamic State remnants. After 2017 the air force kept striking Islamic State cells in rural Iraq. Wikipedia’s L-159 article reports L-159 strikes in the Hamrin mountains in late 2021. On 13 March 2025 a senior Islamic State leader was reported killed in an air strike in Anbar; the source does not say which force carried it out. Detailed official figures for Iraqi air strikes in 2024–2026 were not found in the sources we could reach. Resultado Ongoing at low intensity. The Ministry of Defence site could not be reached; individual strike claims were not verified. |
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Figures verified 2026-10-01. Back to the Iraqi Air Force.