Mauritania Islamic Air Force

The Air Force of Mauritania is the air force of the Mauritania Defence Forces. It was established in 1960. Like many of the former French colonies, Mauritania received limited economic and military aid from France. They started as a transport force with four C-47s, two Aérospatiale N 262 and two Reims F337's.

History
Achieving independence in 1960 the Faidem's (Force Aerienne Islamique de Mauritanie) received equipment from France, such as C-47s and MH.1521 Broussards, which was later replaced by the Britten-Norman BN-2A Defender between 1976 and 1978 and had operated as a transport and observation squadron in the Western Sahara War. During the same time two Cessna 337s and two DHC-5 Buffalo STOL transports were supplied in 1977 and 1978 with one DHC-5 crashing almost immediately and the other being returned to De Havilland Canada in 1979. After the Polisario Front shot down one Defender and damaged two in 1978 the Mauritanian government ordered six IA-58 Pucarás for ground attack duties from Argentina; this order was later cancelled after a Mauritanian military coup.

The Air Force School was recently created in Atar. It was founded to train pilots, mechanics, other crewmen for the Air Force.

More recent procurements have been from China in the form of the Harbin Y-12 II turboprop transports were delivered in September 1995, one crashed in April 1996. A second one crashed on July 12, 2012. The Xian Y-7 (a licensed variant of the An-24) was delivered from October 1997, which crashed in May 1998.