It was derived from Dassault's popular Mirage III fighter and spawned several variants of its own, including the IAI Kfir.

Since the weather over the Middle East is clear and sunny most of the time, the Israelis suggested removing the air intercept radar and its avionics, normally located behind the cockpit, from the standard Mirage IIIE to reduce cost and maintenance, and replacing them with more fuel storage for attack missions.

[5] It looked much like the Mirage III, except that it had a long slender nose that extended the aircraft's length by about half a metre.

Rising tensions in the Middle East led French President Charles de Gaulle to embargo the Israeli Mirage 5s on 3 June 1967.

The Mirages continued to roll off the production line, even though they were embargoed, and by 1968 the batch was complete and the Israelis had provided final payments.

While the Mirage 5 had been originally oriented to the clear-weather attack role, with some avionic fits it was refocused to the air-combat mission.

The Mirage 5 was sold to Abu Dhabi, Belgium, Colombia, Egypt, Gabon, Libya, Pakistan, Peru, Venezuela, and Zaire, with the usual list of subvariant designations and variations in kit.

In 1982, Pakistan Chief of Air Staff ACM (Gen.) Anwar Shamim acquired an additional squadron of the Mirage 5 from France to provide effective support to the Navy.

The upgrade eventually included a more modern cockpit, a new ejection seat, a laser rangefinder, and canards to improve takeoff performance and overall maneuverability.

A new government canceled the MIRSIP but SABCA was allowed to carry out the update, in order to sell the aircraft on the export market.

In the first phase of the project, the PAF acquired 33 former Royal Australian Air Force Mirage III fighters which were upgraded and designated ROSE I.

Around 20 fighters from the first batch were upgraded with new cockpits, navigation/attack suites, defensive aids systems and a forward-looking infrared (FLIR) sensor under the aircraft's nose/cockpit, being designated ROSE II.

Resultantly, Pakistan launched retaliatory airstrikes (Codenamed "Operation Swift Retort") on military installations at Indian Administered Kashmir.

15 Squadron dropped their H-4 SOW glide bombs which were guided to their specific targets by Weapon System Officers seated in Dassault Mirage-IIIDAs via data link.