DESPARDES — Iraqis are back in a big way for military training in Pakistan.
“We are training their F 16 pilots as well. And surprisingly, you will find Saudi, Iraqi and Iranian cadets all at one time in the PAF academy Risalpur,” says a senior Pakistani defense official on condition of anonymity as he’s not authorized to speak officially.
“On Saturday, five Iraqi Cadets also graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA)” — the country’s prestigious “Westpoint” in Kakul.
According to him, “These cadets graduated from PMA after a gap of about three decades. Last Iraqi cadets who graduated from PMA was in April 1992,” he said.
The country’s “Westpoint” (Wespoint is a boys only school), also trains female cadets — their numbers have been growing in defense domain for over more than a decade now.
The academy is a two-year accredited federal service school in Kakul near Abbottabad in the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) bordering Afghanistan on the west.
