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Saudi Arabia
Persian Gulf War, 1991
At the conclusion of its bloody eight-year war with Iran, Iraq
was able to maintain a huge, battle-tested army and vast stockpiles
of modern weapons. To intimidate Kuwait over the issue of access
to the gulf and Kuwait's unwillingness to limit its oil production,
President Saddam Husayn massed Iraqi troops on Kuwait's border.
On August 2, 1990, to the surprise of the world, Iraq invaded
and occupied Kuwait, and Husayn announced Kuwait's annexation
as Iraq's nineteenth province. Iraqi combat forces continued to
move southward to the Saudi border, and enormous amounts of supplies
were transported to the frontline troops. Intelligence sources
indicated that Husayn planned to seize the nearby Saudi oil fields
and processing installations. The Saudi Arabian National Guard
was mobilized and deployed along the border, with army units to
follow. Convinced that an Iraqi attack on Saudi territory was
imminent and recognizing that available Saudi forces were no match
for the divisions Husayn had moved into Kuwait, King Fahd authorized
the deployment of United States forces to defend his northern
border against Iraqi aggression.
In the ensuing months, an allied force of more than 600,000 ground,
sea, and air force personnel was assembled to defend Saudi Arabia
and to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait. Command of the allied forces
was divided, with the head of the United States Central Command,
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, in charge of United States, British,
and French units and his Saudi counterpart, Lieutenant General
Khalid ibn Sultan Al Saud, son of the minister of defense and
aviation and nephew of the king, in charge of units from twenty-four
non-Western countries, including troops from Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Syria, Kuwait, and other states of the Persian Gulf. Saudi ground
forces deployed for the allied undertaking (called Operation Desert
Shield and renamed Operation Desert Storm when the war began in
January 1991), consisted of one armored brigade, three mechanized
brigades, and two national guard mechanized brigades.
Saudi military resources were strained by the need to manage
the allied military buildup and to ensure that the nations contributing
forces to the coalition were supplied with fuel, housing, power,
and food. The Saudi air force flew 3,000 sorties, losing only
one Tornado and two F-5E fighter aircraft to Iraqi fire. In one
of the few engagements by any of the allied powers with the Iraqi
air force, two Iraqi Mirage F-1 aircraft trying to attack allied
shipping were shot down by a Saudi pilot. Saudi fighter units
were frustrated by the absence of Iraqi air targets; Iraqi aircraft
either were destroyed on the ground or shifted away from the fighting.
In their only ground attack on Saudi territory, the Iraqis captured
the evacuated border town of Ras al Khafji on January 30, 1991.
After two days of heavy fighting, three Saudi mechanized battalions,
one tank battalion, and two national guard battalions, joined
by a battalion from Qatar and supported by United States Marines
and attack helicopters, succeeded in driving the Iraqis out of
the town on February 2. Eleven Iraqi tanks and fifty-one other
armored vehicles were destroyed. The Saudis reported casualties
of eighteen dead, thirty-two wounded, and eleven missing in what
was described as the greatest land battle in which the country's
forces had ever been engaged. Some allied observers said that
the national guard units acted more decisively and were more aggressive
in using firepower against entrenched Iraqi troops than the regular
Saudi forces.
When the massive ground assault against the Iraqi positions began
on February 24, 1991, the Saudi troops formed part of two Arab
armies. The first, Joint Forces Command North, which also included
Egyptian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti troops, was deployed on Kuwait's
western border. Joint Forces Command East was deployed along the
gulf, immediately south of Kuwait, and consisted of about five
brigades from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab
Emirates, Morocco, and Senegal. The Saudi national guard formed
part of a mobile reserve.
The main attack was led by United States, British, and French
forces in the west, directly facing Iraqi territory, and was aimed
at cutting links between the Iraqi forces in Kuwait and their
sources of supply in Iraq. The ground assault on Kuwait by the
Arab forces of Joint Forces Command North was led by two Egyptian
divisions on the left and on the right, and the ad hoc Khalid
Division, consisting of Saudi and Kuwaiti troops, including the
Saudi Twentieth Mechanized Brigade and the Fourth Armored Brigade.
As the Khalid Division advanced eastward toward Kuwait City, passages
through Iraqi minefields were cleared by allied bombing and engineer
operations. On the third day, after light fighting and the surrender
of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, Kuwait City was liberated. In
the four days of fighting before the Iraqi army defending Kuwait
was destroyed, Saudi casualties were minimal. The Saudi navy was
also involved, receiving credit for sinking an Iraqi minelayer
with a Harpoon antiship missile.
Data as of December 1992
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