Battle of Khafji
1991 battle of the Gulf War
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.
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who had already tried and failed to draw Coalition forces into costly ground engagements by shelling Saudi Arabian positions and oil storage tanks and firing Scud surface-to-surface missiles at Israel, ordered the invasion of Saudi Arabia from southern Kuwait. The 1st and 5th Mechanized Divisions and 3rd Armored Division were ordered to conduct a multi-pronged invasion toward Khafji, engaging Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti, and U.S. forces along the coastline, with a supporting Iraqi commando force ordered to infiltrate further south by sea and harass the Coalition's rear.
These three divisions, which had suffered significant losses from attacks by Coalition aircraft in the preceding days, attacked on 29 January. Most of their attacks were repulsed by U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Army forces but one of the Iraqi columns occupied Khafji on the night of 29–30 January. From 30 January to 1 February, two Saudi Arabian National Guard battalions and two Qatari tank companies attempted to retake control of the city, aided by Coalition aircraft and U.S. artillery. By 1 February, the city had been recaptured at the cost of 43 Coalition servicemen dead and 52 wounded. Iraqi Army fatalities numbered between 60 and 300, while an estimated 400 were captured as prisoners of war.
Background
On 2 August 1990, the Iraqi Army invaded and occupied the neighboring state of Kuwait.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Battle of Khafji” is 1991 battle of the Gulf War. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Battle, Khafji and battle, not as a finished interpretation.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q718770. The Library of Congress control number is sh2003010851. Authority coordinates are 28.425, 48.500. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1991 and 1990.
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This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Khafji” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.