MOGADISHU, SOMALIA – A Turkish outlet reported on Wednesday 7 October that Somalia had reached an agreement with Pakistan to buy JF-17 Thunder fighter jets, the third time since February that a purchase of the Pakistani-Chinese aircraft has been reported and the third time neither government has published a contract, a price or a delivery date. The figure attached to the earlier reports, 24 aircraft for about 900 million dollars, equals roughly two thirds of the federal budget of 1,386,807,242 dollars that parliament approved for 2026. The report came three weeks after a Pakistan Air Force delegation presented the Somali air force commander with a model of the JF-17 in Mogadishu, and two weeks after families of fallen soldiers reported that allowances reaching some 6,000 retired soldiers, disabled soldiers and bereaved families had been cut by half or more.
Three Reports of a JF-17 Deal Since February
The latest report, carried on the Turkish outlet’s X account, said Somalia had agreed to acquire the multirole JF-17 as part of an effort to build layered air defences, and gave no number of aircraft, no value and no delivery schedule. By Friday 9 October neither the defence ministry in Mogadishu nor the government in Islamabad had confirmed a final procurement contract, and no official announcement had disclosed the number or the variant of the aircraft. The defence ministry, which publishes the minister’s meetings and the air force commander’s receptions, had issued no statement on the report by that day.
On Saturday 21 February talks for up to 24 JF-17 Block III aircraft were reported for the first time, with a value of 900 million dollars, after the then air force commander, Mohamud Sheikh Ali, visited Islamabad. An unnamed Somali defence official said the country’s airspace “must be protected by Somali hands,” and Pakistan’s defence production minister, Raza Hayat Harraj, put the price of a single JF-17 at 30 to 40 million dollars, about a third of what a Western fighter costs.
Two months later, on Tuesday 21 April, officials familiar with the matter were reported as saying that final contracts had been signed earlier that week after months of negotiation, that the package covered pilot training, ground crews and logistics, and that the first aircraft could arrive within 18 to 24 months. Both governments were expected to announce the agreement within days. Neither did, and the October report carried a different description of the same sale, an agreement with no figures attached. A Nairobi-based defence analyst quoted in April, Ahmed Hassan, said that “the jets alone are not enough, the ecosystem matters,” pointing to the airbases, air traffic control and maintenance Somalia would have to rebuild. Furthermore, all three accounts rest on unnamed officials, and none quotes a Somali minister by name on the JF-17.
Islamabad in August and Air Marshal Sarfraz in September
On Tuesday 4 August Defence Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi and his Pakistani counterpart, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, signed a memorandum of understanding in Islamabad covering counterterrorism, military training, the exchange of expertise and the building of Somali defence capacity. The ministry described the text as laying the groundwork for closer collaboration between the two armed forces, and it published no clause on the JF-17 or on any other aircraft. Fiqi also met Field Marshal Asim Munir, the head of Pakistan’s army, during the visit.
The commanders of the Somali navy and air force travelled with him, and the delegation visited the National Defence University and Global Industrial and Defence Solutions, the state-linked company that produces and markets Pakistani military equipment. On 7 August India said it was following the development of Somalia’s relations with Pakistan closely, and no publicly disclosed agreement between Mogadishu and Islamabad gives Pakistan a base, a port or combat troops in Somalia. After the August meetings the Pakistan Air Force said it was ready to support the modernisation of the Somali air force through training and operational expertise, an offer that did not mention the JF-17.
On Saturday 19 September Air Marshal Muhammad Sarfraz, Pakistan’s air defence commander and deputy chief of the air staff, arrived in Mogadishu at the head of a delegation and was received by the air force commander, Brigadier General Abdirisaq Mohamud Haji. He met President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre and Fiqi, visited air force headquarters and handed the commander a model of the JF-17. Abdirisaq Mohamud Haji had been named to the post in a reshuffle ordered by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in late February, and he is reported to have trained in Eritrea as a young fighter and to have served as the intelligence agency’s link to Asmara under the previous government. Neither side announced a JF-17 purchase during the visit.
A JF-17 Fleet Against the 2026 Federal Budget
Parliament approved a federal budget of 1,386,807,242 dollars for 2026 in a joint session on 23 December 2025, by 174 votes to four with one abstention. A fleet of 24 JF-17 aircraft at the reported 900 million dollars would cost about 65 percent of that sum, before the airbases, radar and maintenance needed to fly them. The defence ministry has not said how any purchase would be financed, and no parliamentary vote on an aircraft contract has been reported. The International Monetary Fund noted that the 2026 budget includes domestically financed social spending for the first time, and the World Bank estimates that growth slowed to about three percent in 2025 as foreign assistance fell.
On 25 September families of soldiers killed fighting al-Shabaab said the monthly allowance for each child had fallen from 200 dollars to 100 without notice. A day later the defence committee of the House of the People said the cuts reached close to 6,000 retired and disabled soldiers and families of the fallen, by half for some and by 60 percent for the families of fallen officers, and it summoned Fiqi and the army commander, Brigadier General Ibrahim Mohamed Mohamud, to answer for them at Villa Hargeisa on 4 October, giving the minister 72 hours to reply in writing. On 27 September Fiqi and the army commander visited children of fallen soldiers and said a school and a health facility would be opened for them, and no explanation of the cuts from either ministry had been reported by Friday 9 October.
Saudi Arabia paid for the roughly 3,000 recruits who graduated at Xananbuure on 16 August, the largest class trained on Somali soil since 1991, and Turkiye funds the stipends of the Gorgor commandos. The October report concerns a purchase by the government of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose four-year term ended on 15 May 2026 and who has said he will stay in office until May 2027 under amendments that lengthened the term to five years. The April account put the first deliveries 18 to 24 months away, which falls after May 2027, the date the president himself has set for leaving office.
Turkish F-16s Already Fly Over Somalia
The Somali Air Force flew combat aircraft under Mohamed Siad Barre and collapsed with the state in 1991, and in the years since, the strikes in Somali skies have come from foreign air forces. Turkish F-16s were first seen operating from Aden Adde airport in January 2026, and on 30 June the defence ministry credited them with strikes in Lower Shabelle. On 31 August they were reported striking riverbank positions at Basra, thirty kilometres from Villa Somalia, and by one independent tally American strikes in Somalia had reached at least 86 this year by the end of September.
On Monday 28 September Turkish F-16s struck near Baidoa in support of federal troops fighting forces loyal to former President Abdiaziz Laftagareen, in the same days that his Darawish struck the army’s 60th Division inside Baidoa. In March 2020 and again in July 2025 federal forces fought Jubaland at Beled Hawo, and at the start of October the Beled Hawo commissioner said a force taking orders from federal officers was moving on the town once more. The February report presented the JF-17 as a way to protect Somali airspace, and the same report said the jet could let Mogadishu rely less on American and Turkish air power and extend its control over the airspace, Somaliland’s included.
Pakistan took command of Combined Task Force 151, the counter-piracy force in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin, in January 2025, and in January 2026 it warned that recognising Somaliland could worsen instability in the Horn and the Red Sea. Three Pakistani nationals were killed in an attack on the cargo vessel Tihamah near the Bab el-Mandeb in August. Since February the JF-17 has been reported as under negotiation, signed and agreed, and the only Pakistani aircraft that has publicly changed hands in Mogadishu is the model Air Marshal Sarfraz gave the Somali air force commander on 19 September.
