By late January 1991, the “war” part of the Gulf War still looked strangely distant. Since Operation Desert Shield transitioned to Operation Desert Storm, the war appeared very one-sided. Coalition jets had been pounding Iraqi command posts, radars, and armored columns in Kuwait and southern Iraq.
That was all about to change.
Saddam Hussein aimed to strike back in The Battle of Khafji
On the ground, Saddam Hussein still had large forces dug in, and he wanted to prove they could strike back against the American-led Coalition defending Saudi Arabia. His chosen target was the quiet Saudi border town of Khafji, just south of Kuwait on the Persian Gulf. It was a tempting target; the Iraqis not only needed a propaganda victory, but it’s likely Hussein also wanted a reconnaissance-in-force to probe Coalition defenses and disrupt plans for a ground offensive he knew would be coming.
Khafji had been evacuated of civilians months earlier, but on Iraqi maps it looked ideal: close, symbolic, and apparently lightly defended. Saddam and his generals ordered elements of three divisions—the 3rd Armored, 5th Mechanized, and 1st Mechanized—to push south. One column would drive straight down the coastal highway into Khafji, another would swing through the desert to cut the town off, and a third would shield the western flank while Iraqi artillery and rockets raked the border.
Fierce Resistance in The Battle of Khafji
Waiting along the low sand berm that marked the frontier were U.S. Marines and Saudi forces. Light armored infantry from Task Force Shepherd and the 2nd Light Armored Infantry Battalion manned exposed observation posts, backed by Saudi brigades in depth. After dark on January 29, Iraqi armor finally moved. At Observation Post 4, Marine recon troops and light armored vehicles suddenly faced tanks of the Iraqi 3rd Armored Division, and a brutal firefight erupted in the open desert, as missile backblast and tracer fire cut through the night.
Coalition air and anti-armor fire tore into the Iraqi column, but at a terrible cost. A malfunctioning missile from a U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II slammed into a Marine vehicle, and in the confusion, friendly fire helped turn OP-4 into a smoking wreck of shattered LAVs. Eleven Marines were killed, but Iraq’s western thrust was badly mauled and stalled north of the berm.
Farther east, the 5th Mechanized Division slipped around the flank. Around 2200 local time, Iraqi troops overran Saudi positions at Observation Posts 7 and 8 and rolled almost unopposed down the highway toward the coast.
Iraqi forces temporarily occupied Khafji in The Battle of Khafji
In the early hours of the next day, Iraqi tanks and infantry passed under Khafji’s concrete entry arches, firing into empty storefronts and apartments as they went. They believed they had stormed a major Coalition base on Saudi soil. In reality, the town had been empty since August, except for two small Marine reconnaissance teams now hiding in buildings, quietly reporting Iraqi movements over the radio and calling in air and artillery strikes on targets in and around the cit
Before dawn, Saudi commander General Khalid bin Sultan and American Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf agreed that Khafji would be retaken primarily by Arab ground forces, backed by overwhelming American air power and artillery. The mission went to the 2nd Saudi Arabian National Guard Brigade.
Its 7th Battalion, mounted in V-150 armored cars and reinforced by a Qatari tank company with AMX-30s, formed the spearhead, guided by U.S. Special Forces and Marine forward air controllers. Late that night, the Saudis and Qataris launched their first counterattack up the coastal highway and into the southern edge of the city.
Coalition forces drove out Iraqis in The Battle of Khafji
Outside Khafji, Qatari tanks ambushed Iraqi armor and knocked out several T-55s. Inside the tight streets, however, Iraqi infantry and tanks, dug into firing positions among the buildings, hit the advancing V-150s with rocket-propelled grenades and main-gun rounds. As one Saudi armored car burned beneath the arches, and the 7th Battalion was forced to pull back and regroup. For Iraqi troops in and around the city, the night of 30–31 January was far worse: Coalition aircraft flew hundreds of sorties against armored formations massing north of Khafji, shredding columns still trying to reach the town or escape back toward Kuwait.
That night, Coalition aircraft also smashed an Iraqi amphibious force trying to reinforce Khafji by sea, sinking most of the small craft in the Gulf. Over the border, an AC-130 gunship that stayed on station past sunrise to cover Marines and Saudi troops was shot down by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile, killing all fourteen airmen. At first light on January 31, the Saudi 7th Battalion drove into Khafji from the south, the 8th from the northeast, while the brigade’s 5th Battalion blocked the coastal road and ambushed Iraqi reinforcements.
Coalition Forces Secured Victory in The Battle of Khafji
By nightfall, the Iraqi garrison had been carved into pockets, and any vehicle that tried to move in the open was hit from the air. The end came on February 1, when Saudi and Qatari units launched a final push into Khafji as the Marine recon teams slipped out of hiding. Iraqi resistance collapsed; the last companies either surrendered or were destroyed.
In four days of fighting, the Coalition lost 43 dead, 25 Americans and 18 Saudis, while Iraqi divisions left hundreds of men and scores of armored vehicles wrecked, a clear sign they could not withstand the ground offensive that would follow later that month. Khafji was the first major ground engagement of the war and the only time Iraqi forces occupied Saudi territory. It also provided a real-world test of Iraqi tactics and Coalition joint operations for the coming ground offensive.
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