By Bahroz Faraydun
BALAD, Iraq – Major Mohammed Anwar, a Kurd who flies F-16s for the Iraqi Air Force, has engaged in more than 100 bombing missions against the Islamic State (ISIS).
The 31-year-old pilot, who is from Erbil, became Iraq’s first airman to fly the new generation F-16 fighter plane. Anwar has undergone five F-16 training missions in the United States and is now based at the Iraqi city of Balad, supervising bombing missions from the air force base there and overseeing the 10 F-16 jets the Iraqi Air Force has purchased.
He spoke to Rudaw as he prepared to fly his jet to bomb two ISIS headquarters in Mosul’s town center, talking about his experience as a pilot in the Iraqi Air Force.
Rudaw: What is the difference between the F-16 and other fighter jets?
Mohammed Anwar: The F-16 jets are among the most advanced fighter jets in the world. Not many countries in the Middle East have this kind of fighter jet. I think Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and a number of other countries in the Middle East have these jets. The distinctive feature of this fighter is that it has 100 percent precision. According to reports, ever since we have been bombing ISIS with these jets, they have lost 60 percent of their capacity.
The Kurds are part of the operations room (central command) formed to counter ISIS. In Kurdistan, President Masoud Barzani supervises the operations room. Do you have direct contact with that operations room?
It is a joint operations room. I myself have participated in its meetings over three times, expressing my opinion and listening to the commanders. They command what needs to be done, and we deliver it.
Are your targets already specified, or do you fly around and bomb the areas that you suspect are ISIS positions?
There are targets which are already determined for us, and others we see and notify the central command about. Upon receiving approval to eliminate, we bomb them.
Tell us about how you feel as a Kurd bombing enemies, given that we as Kurds have always been the ones who have been bombed?
I feel good as a Kurd to defend the territory of Iraq and Kurdistan. We all know that ISIS does not distinguish between humans. I know that I have killed a large number of ISIS militants with my jet. They are brutal. The feeling I have cannot be put into words, when I take out my targets, knowing that I save the lives of innocent young men and women.
People on the ground fear that pilots might sometimes mistake their targets. What do you think of this?
These doubts are no longer common. The current flight route system is too advanced, unlike the previous Russian system. Technology was not as advanced in the past. Nowadays, all the targets are determined with extreme
precision through the ground positioning system (GPS). Pilots cannot bomb until they are 100 percent certain of their target. It has now been nearly two years that I, along with my colleagues, have been bombing ISIS. None of our bombings have gone wrong so far. On one occasion I flew over a target that appeared different in the jet’s camera to the one I had already seen. I didn’t bomb the target. I just went back to the airbase.
How many times have you bombed ISIS so far?
Over 100 times.
How many F16 fighter jets does Iraq have?
Ten fighter jets, all of which I supervise.
