Battle of Khafji

The Battle of Khafji was the first major ground engagement of the Gulf War It took place in the Saudi Arabian city of Khafji. As the air portion of Operation Desert Storm drew to a close, Iraqi troops invaded Khafji. Forces from Saudi Arabia and Qatar backed by American artillery and air strikes evicted Iraqi troops and tanks, and freed two trapped U.S. Marine reconnaissance teams. It was the deadliest and most intense firefight that U.S. forces had seen since the Vietnam War. 25 U.S. servicemen lost their lives over the course of the three day battle. Estimates of Iraqi casualties range upwards of 2,000 killed. Over 400 Iraqi prisoners were taken in the Khafji area during the battle (January 29-February 1 1991).

Related Topics:
Gulf War - Saudi Arabia - Khafji - Operation Desert Storm - Iraq - Qatar - American - U.S. Marine - Reconnaissance - Vietnam War - January 29 - February 1 - 1991

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The Iraqi advance caught the U.S.-led Coalition almost completely by surprise, and the initial hours of the battle were marked by gross confusion and disarray on the Coalition side. Numerous U.S. Marine and Special Forces positions along the Kuwait-Saudi Arabian border were overrun by the Iraqi forces. One team led by a Captain Douglas Kleinsmith was presumed dead by the high command. The city of Khafji fell with little resistance, as the town had been largely abandoned by the Coalition.

Related Topics:
Special Forces - Kuwait

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The battle culminated with the entrapment of two U.S. Marine reconnaissance teams inside the town of Khafji. The presence of the Marine teams complicated the recapture effort although the two teams valiantly reported on Iraqi activities inside the town and directed numerous deadly artillery and airstrikes on the occupying Iraqis. The city was eventually retaken by a pan-Arab force coordinated by U.S. Special Forces liaison teams in a manner that some have compared to the famed Lawrence of Arabia. Arab losses totaled 10 dead and 32 wounded.

Related Topics:
Airstrike - Arab - Lawrence of Arabia.

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The engagment is recognized by many as an ill-fated foray of the Iraqi Army into Saudi Arabian territory during the Gulf War. This action is thought to be an attempt by the Iraqis to forestall the coming counter-invasion by coalition forces and as a probe to test the strength of the American-led coalition. The Iraqi Army, especially the Iraqi Republican Guard was viewed as the best military force in the Gulf region, after its victories in the Iran-Iraq War and the Iraq-Kuwait Conflict. It was the last major offensive ever launched by Saddam's army. At the time, the performance of the U.S. Military had not been seriously tested since the Vietnam War, so it was largely guesswork how the U.S. forces would perform in combat. The success of the Marines at Khafji led to the reshaping of the offensive plans of the Coalition commanders to include the largest prisoner collection exercise ever. Khafji was seen as undeniable proof that the Iraqi war machine had been vastly overrated. Addressing the Iraqi fighting man, one U.S. veteran of the battle put it, "Get in the first shot at him and the rest will run away."

Related Topics:
Gulf War - Iraqi Republican Guard - Iran-Iraq War - Iraq-Kuwait Conflict - U.S. Military - Vietnam War - Combat

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The battle of Khafji is also notable because it includes the worst incidences of friendly fire or fratricide between U.S. forces since Vietnam. A total of 11 U.S. Marines were killed in two separate incidents on January 29 1991 at a position known as Observation Post 4, some thirty miles west of Khafji. The battle was the largest military engagement on Saudi Arabian soil since that nation gained independence. The battle was also notable for the capture of Melissa Rathbun-Nealy, the first female U.S. prisoner of war since World War II. She was captured in a manner virtually identical to Private Jessica Lynch twelve years later at An Nasiriyah, Iraq. Rathbun-Nealy was released on March 4, 1991 after spending over a month in a Baghdad prison.

Related Topics:
Friendly fire - Fratricide - January 29 - 1991 - Prisoner of war - World War II - Jessica Lynch - An Nasiriyah, Iraq - March 4 - Baghdad

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Some media critics including Chris Hedges, then of the New York Times, complained that the battle of Khafji demonstrated the flawed U.S. press pooling policy of the time and that it prevented the full story of the battle from being widely reported upon. Indeed, the first fratricidal incident of the battle was largely covered up by the U.S. high command in part due to this dearth of press coverage of the battle. The only published photos of the battle were taken by two French journalists that defied U.S. press controls and entered the battlefield without official authorization.

Related Topics:
Chris Hedges - New York Times - French

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The battle is remembered by Gulf War veterans as the single engagment that puts the lie to the commonly-held notion of the war as a push-button, video game-like enterprise.

Related Topics:
Veteran - Video game

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Source:

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• Storm on the Horizons: Khafji-The Battle that Changed the Course of the Gulf War--David J. Morris (Free Press, 2004).
• War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning--Chris Hedges (Anchor Books, 2003).