About two weeks after the start of the second Gulf War operations in what was known at the time as Desert Storm, the international coalition was surprised by a surprising ground operation through which Iraqi forces managed to control the city of Khafji (eastern Saudi Arabia), which borders the Kuwaiti border.

The attack carried out by Iraq on the night of 29-30 January 1991 represented the second tactical surprise after the use of Scud missiles, which mainly targeted Israel, and in which the late President Saddam Hussein tried to regain the initiative.

Al-Badrani considered that Baghdad was trying to agitate Western public opinion to stop the war and return to the negotiating table (Al-Jazeera Net)

Preparations for the attack


After the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait and the international coalition forces landed their armies inside Saudi Arabia and some Gulf countries, some Iraqi officers tried to convince the leadership at the time that the attack was the best means of defense and that the war was a trick, according to Dr. Ahmed Fakak Al-Badrani, the former dean of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Mosul.

Al-Badrani added to Al-Jazeera Net, that what happened was a military plan and a great ruse, as Iraqi armored vehicles advanced and directed their artillery nozzles, unlike the Saudi and American forces, in order to suggest that these forces had defected from their leadership and came to surrender, and then enter the battle abruptly to capture the largest number of The dead in the ranks of the US army and other forces.

In turn, retired Major General Majid Al-Qaisi indicated that the coalition could not monitor the Iraqi communications in the surprise Khafji operation, and he did not feel the reconnaissance operations carried out by the Iraqi forces before that, by sending reconnaissance detachments that reached the borders between the Iraqi forces and the coalition forces, and obtained important information Used in planning the attack.

Al-Qaisi: The Iraqi military leadership wanted the battle to confuse the coalition’s plans to conduct a large ground operation (Iraqi Press)

Objective, timing,


and Al-Qaisi indicated to Al-Jazeera Net that the Iraqi military leadership wanted from this battle to confuse the coalition's plans to carry out a large ground operation in which the American, British and French forces were massing on the Saudi-Iraqi border to the west of Kuwait, to encircle the Iraqi forces with the backing of air power.

While the professor of modern and contemporary Iraq history, Dr. Bashar al-Akidi, believes that the Khafji operation was an attempt to lure the international coalition forces into a ground battle in which Iraq would achieve a moral victory, and relieve the pressure it suffered due to the air war launched by the United States on vital Iraqi civilian installations and the Iraqi army.

It was also to secure progress towards Saudi lands and approach the eastern Saudi oil fields, which in itself represents a direct threat to their oil exports, Al-Akidi adds to Al-Jazeera Net.

Al-Badrani points out that Baghdad was trying to inflict a large number of deaths to aggravate the American public opinion as well as the Western, which helps to intervene to stop the fire and return to the negotiating table, and some Iraqi officials stated at the time that 10 thousand American soldiers were killed or captured a large number of them, a sponsor. To transfer the results in favor of Iraq.

Al-Aqidi considered that the battle of Khafji was an attempt to lure the coalition into a ground battle in which Iraq would achieve a moral victory (Al-Jazeera Net)

The first ground confrontation


was the battle of Khafji, by direct order from the then Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to the commander of the Third Corps in the Iraqi army, during his visit to the Corps headquarters and his demand to launch a direct attack on the city, according to Al-Aqidi.

He adds, that the Fifth Mechanized Division was chosen and that the Third Armored Division and the First Mechanized Division were assigned, so the Fifth Division was able to take control of the city of Khafji on January 30, 1991, for a temporary period.

Al-Qaisi recounts what happened that day by saying that the Iraqi Fifth Division launched a tank attack on 3 axes on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, but one of these axes stopped due to its clash with the US Marine Corps battalions west of Khafji, while the other two were able to penetrate into the city.

After that, the commander of the International Coalition, Schwarzkopf, asked the Saudis to carry out the opposite attack, and indeed the Saudis carried out attacks, but they did not succeed - according to Al-Qaisi - so they returned the ball under the cover of the heavy bombing of warplanes, strategic bombers and Apache helicopters, which lasted for long hours on the tanks of the Iraqi division.

Al-Qaisi believes that the weakness of the Fifth Division is the lack of air cover, explaining that the tank attack needs support and air protection, but these were not available, which made the coalition launch very violent and intense air attacks targeting Iraqi forces along the road leading to the city of Khafji.

For his part, Al-Badrani mentions that the military history records in his records that the fiercest face-to-face fighting at very close range was in this land, between the armies of the international coalition led by the United States, but it remained independent with its leaders and orders, in exchange for a trained army that fought a fierce war with Iran for 8 years, and gained It has sophistication, patience and martial arts.

And he confirms that the Americans' confusion was evident, as they began to attack their forces by mistake and inflicted material losses, deaths and injuries.

The coalition targeted various Iraqi military sectors (French - archive)

The results:


The Iraqi army lost an armored battalion, of which only a few survived after the withdrawal, in addition to the killing of 32 soldiers and wounding of 35 others, and the capture of 488, according to Al-Badrani.

Meanwhile, the international coalition killed about 96 soldiers and wounded 32 others, and there were 23 prisoners of American soldiers who were escorted to Baghdad.

Regarding the losses of the Iraqi Fifth Division that attacked Al-Khafji, Al-Qaisi spoke of the destruction of 15 tanks and the capture of about 100 Iraqi soldiers, in addition to the injuries that occurred among the soldiers of the division.

Al-Qaisi attributes the reason for the Iraqi losses to the coalition's air superiority, which is equivalent to 10 times the strength of Iraq, as there were 2,460 combat aircraft of various types, and 33 armies, compared to about 298 Mirage, Sukhoi or MiG-29 aircraft for the Iraqi forces.