Gulf War
1990–1991 conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition
The Gulf War was an armed conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition led by the United States in response to Saddam Hussein invading neighboring Kuwait on 2 August 1990. The coalition's efforts were in two phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, from the bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January until the American-led liberation of Kuwait on 28 February.
The invasion of Kuwait was met with immediate international condemnation. The UN Security Council demanded Iraq's immediate withdrawal and imposed a total embargo on products from Iraq and Kuwait. A coalition began a military buildup in the Persian Gulf region. The broadest military alliance since World War II, its largest contributors were the US, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and Egypt.
The Security Council issued an ultimatum to Iraq on 29 November 1990, expiring on 15 January 1991, to withdraw from Kuwait, with member-states thereafter empowered to use "all necessary means" to force withdrawal. On 17 January, the coalition began aerial and naval bombardment of Iraq and Kuwait, which continued for five weeks. Iraq fired missiles at Israel and at Saudi Arabia, but failed to split Muslim-majority countries from the coalition. On 24 February 1991, the coalition launched a decisive ground assault liberating Kuwait and promptly advancing into Iraqi territory.
“Gulf War” enters the record as 1990–1991 conflict between Iraq and a 42-country coalition. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gulf, conflict and between can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q37643. The Library of Congress control number is sh91001459. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1990 and 1991.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gulf War” 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.