The Iran–Iraq War, also known as the First Gulf War, was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for nearly eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded the Iranian Revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq. There were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Muslims, would exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Baʽathist government, which was officially secular and dominated by Sunni Muslims. Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Persian Gulf, which was not seen as an achievable objective prior to the Islamic Revolution because of Pahlavi Iran's economic and military superiority as well as its close relationships with the United States and Israel.
The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the United States. The coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, which began with the aerial bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January 1991 and came to a close with the American-led liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991.
This is a timeline of the events surrounding the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion began on 20 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a United States-led combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded the Republic of Iraq. Twenty-two days after the first day of the invasion, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by coalition forces on 9 April after the six-day-long Battle of Baghdad. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in his Mission Accomplished speech, after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
The Iraqi no-fly zones conflict was a low-level conflict in the two no-fly zones (NFZs) in Iraq that were proclaimed by the United States, United Kingdom, and France after the Gulf War of 1991. The United States stated that the NFZs were intended to protect the ethnic Kurdish minority in northern Iraq and Shiite Muslims in the south. Iraqi aircraft were forbidden from flying inside the zones. The policy was enforced by the United States and the United Kingdom until 2003, when it was rendered obsolete by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. French aircraft patrols also participated until France withdrew in 1996.
A surgical strike is a military attack which is intended to damage only a legitimate military target, with no or minimal collateral damage to surrounding structures, vehicles, buildings, or the general public infrastructure and utilities.
The Battle of Khafji was the first major ground engagement of the Gulf War. It took place in and around the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji, from 29 January to 1 February 1991.
The military history of Iraq, due to a rich archaeological record, is one of the longest in written human history. The region of Iraq, which used to be Mesopotamia, has been referred to as the "cradle of civilization", and wars of conquest have been recorded in this region as far back as the third millennium BC. Because of its geopolitical dominance and ideology based in world domination, the Neo-Assyrian Empire is by many researchers regarded to have been the first world empire in history. The area possesses strategic value, initially for the rich, fertile agricultural region in the Mesopotamian plain, and more recently for large petroleum deposits and access to the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The present territory of Iraq lacks significant strategic barriers, making it difficult to defend against foreign invasion.
The Iraqi Armed Forces are the military forces of the Republic of Iraq. They consist of the Ground forces, the Army Aviation Command, the Iraqi Air Force, the Air Defence Command and the Iraqi Navy. The armed forces are administered by the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Effective control of the MOD armed forces rests with the Prime Minister of Iraq. Along with these primary service branches, there exists the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service and the non-MOD paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces.
The 9K52 Luna-M is a Soviet short-range artillery rocket system which fires unguided and spin-stabilized 9M21 rockets. It was originally developed in the 1960s to provide divisional artillery support using tactical nuclear weapons but gradually modified for conventional use. The 9K52 was succeeded by the OTR-21 Tochka.
In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Iraqi Army initiated two failed and one successful (1978–1991) offensive chemical weapons (CW) programs. President Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) pursued the most extensive chemical program during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), when he waged chemical warfare against his foe. He also used chemicals in 1988 in the Al-Anfal Campaign against his civilian Kurdish population and during a popular uprising in the south in 1991.
Iraq–Israel relations refer to the bilateral ties between the State of Israel and the Republic of Iraq. Due to Iraq's non-recognition of Israel as a legitimate state since the latter's establishment in 1948, the two countries have not had any formal diplomatic relations. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was a part of the Arab coalition that declared war on and invaded Israel shortly after its establishment, sparking the First–Arab Israeli War, and the two states have since then been in a continuous state of hostilities. Iraqi forces also participated in the Third Arab–Israeli War and the Fourth Arab–Israeli War in 1967 and 1973, respectively.
A Scud missile is one of a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was exported widely to both Second and Third World countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name attached to the missile by Western intelligence agencies. The Russian names for the missile are the R-11, and the R-17Elbrus. The name Scud has been widely used to refer to these missiles and the wide variety of derivative variants developed in other countries based on the Soviet design.
al-Husayn was a short-range ballistic missile developed in Ba'athist Iraq. An upgraded version of Scud missile, the al-Husayn was widely used by the Iraqi Army during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988) and the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991).
Operation Desert Storm, the combat phase of the Gulf War, began with an extensive aerial bombing campaign by the air forces of the coalition against targets in Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait from 17 January 1991 to 23 February 1991. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition flew over 100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs, widely destroying military and civilian infrastructure. The air campaign was commanded by United States Air Force (USAF) Lieutenant General Chuck Horner, who briefly served as Commander-in-Chief—Forward of U.S. Central Command while General Norman Schwarzkopf was still in the United States. The British air commanders were Air Chief Marshal Andrew Wilson and Air Vice-Marshal Bill Wratten. The air campaign had largely finished by 23 February 1991 with the beginning of the coalition ground offensive into Kuwait.
Relations between the Arab Republic of Iraq and State of Palestine have historically been close, with Palestinian Liberation Organization supported by the Ba'athist Iraqi regime during the second half of the 20th century, and vice versa, Iraqi Ba'athist regime supported by PLO leadership during the Gulf War. The State of Palestine has an embassy and consulate in Baghdad and Erbil accordingly, but Iraq doesn't have an embassy in Palestine.
The timeline of the Gulf War details the dates of the major events of the 1990–1991 war. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 and ended with the Liberation of Kuwait by Coalition forces. Iraq subsequently agreed to the United Nations' demands on 28 February 1991. The ground war officially concluded with the signing of the armistice on 11 April 1991. However, the official end to Operation Desert Storm did not occur until sometime between 1996 - 1998. Major events in the aftermath include anti-Saddam Hussein uprisings in Iraq, massacres against the Kurds by the regime, Iraq formally recognizing the sovereignty of Kuwait in 1994, and eventually ending its cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission in 1998.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2018. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The al-Hijarah missile was an Iraqi liquid propelled inertial Short-range ballistic missile, it was also a Scud missile and considered an upgrade of the al-Hussein missile equipped with chemical warheads. It was developed by 1990 and was first used in the Persian Gulf War where the al-Hijarah missile would release poison gas clouds and kill personnel on the ground, as well as ignite oil wells. One al-Hijarah missile was confirmed to have been fired at Israel during the Gulf War where one landed near Dimona, it was revealed that the missile had a concrete filled warhead.
Between 18 January and 26 February 1991, Ba'athist Iraq launched 46 al-Husayn Scud missiles against Saudi Arabian and American military targets in Dhahran and the Saudi capital of Riyadh amidst the Gulf War. Attacks began hours after US General Norman Schwarzkopf emphasized large-scale efforts taken to comb the vast expanses of western Iraq for missile attacks aimed at Israel.
