M113 APCs and AH-1F Cobras donated by Jordan to the Philippines.

Filipino President Duterte has announced that the Kingdom of Jordan was donating dozens of M113 APCs and two Bell AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters to the Philippine government. The latter would just pay for the repair and refurbishing done through the Jordanian Armed Forces, plus paying for the shipping of the armored vehicles to the Philippines.

Jordanian M113 APCs (Picture source : Facebook/Jordanian army)

No exact variant or quantities are known so far but it is said to be, at least, more than 60 M113s, possibly including specialized models of the M113 family. These vehicles are said to have been part of those already stored by the Royal Jordan Army as they receive newer armored vehicles from other countries.

The Royal Jordanian Army operates more than a thousand M113A2 APCs and the Jordan-upgraded M113A2MK-2J, including specialized variants like M577 Command Vehicles, M163 Vulcan Air Defense System vehicles, M901 TOW-mounted anti-tank vehicles, M106 Mortar Carriers, and M806 Armored Recovery Vehicles, and has in storage hundreds of M113s including M113A1 and M113A2 armored personnel carriers.

The possible delivery of two Cobra helicopters was already mentioned in July 2017. The initial info is that the Kingdom of Jordan offered to donate four used Bell AH-1F Cobra attack helicopters to the Philippines, and Philippine Air Force officers/technical team and defense officials were able to check out the Cobras in Jordan last June 2017. The figure has been reduced to two, not losing hope to get back to four.

It is still for clarification if the Jordanian AH-1F Cobras being offered are among those new builds they obtained in the late 1980s from the US, or ex-US Army units transferred in 2001. While Jordan received former Israeli AH-1F Tzefas a few years ago, it is highly unlikely that the units offered to the Philippines are from this batch of helicopters from Israel. The Philippines is also not the first country to receive AH-1F Cobras as donation from Jordan. Earlier this year Kenya was reported to have received at least one and probably more AH-1F Cobras from Jordan.