Paris, April 7 Pakistan wants to upgrade its ageing fleet of fighter jets for prolonged battle against Islamist militants, although the purchase of fifth-generation planes would only be a last resort, a senior air force official said. US ally Pakistan is fighting a Taliban insurgency in its northwest, a separatist insurgency along its Iranian border in the west, and has a heavily militarised and disputed border with arch rival India in the east. In 2014, the military launched a crackdown in the northwestern areas of North and South Waziristan and pushed militants into a few pockets. But its air force, which will need to retire dozens of jets over the coming years, lacks the latest technology and relies heavily on a fleet of about 70 US-made Lockheed Martin F-16s, capable of carrying out precision targeting. “Our concern is we don’t know how long these anti-terrorist operations will continue,” Pakistan Air Force second-in-command Muhammad Ashfaque Arain told Reuters. “We have weakened them (militants) , but I don’t see an end in the very near future, so all the burden is being shared by the F-16s and its pilots.” Sceptics suspect Pakistan’s military is seeking an improved arsenal to counter the growing military might of India. The two countries have fought three wars since their violent separation in 1947. Pakistan also has hundreds of Dassault Aviation’s Mirage jets that are over 40 years old and F7 Chinese warplanes that are over 25 years old, both of which the air force plans to retire in a few years. To fill the void, Islamabad has decided to bet on the JF-17 fighter, jointly developed with China, rather than spend billions on fifth-generation multi-role aircraft like Dassault’s Rafale, which rival India is buying, or the Russian Su-35. That option, Arain said, had almost been ruled out for being too expensive and because Pakistan did not want to mix technologies and resources. It would only be reconsidered if “it was pushed against a wall”. Instead, 16 JF-17s will be produced this year with a further 20 in 2017, but Arain acknowledged that the jets’ usefulness in current operations was limited because it lacks precision targeting. “Operationally, the aircraft are working pretty well so we if we had a targeting pod on the JF-17, the burden would be shared,” Arain said. He said his visit to Paris was in part aimed at assessing from French officials the prospects of supplying the Thales-made Damocles, a third-generation targeting pod. Previous negotiations in 2010 for a deal worth $1.6 billion worth of electronics and missiles collapsed under pressure from India, uncertainty over Pakistan’s finances and fears of the transfer of technology given Chinese involvement in the JF-17. “The Damocles is a battle-proven system. The other options are not,” Arain said. “If we do not get the Damocles pod, we will look for options that may not be proven.”He said the air force was thinking about its needs beyond 2030 when F-16s and JF-17s would start being replaced by more effective aircraft.