Khafji, 1991

The battle, stage by stage

1. 29 January 1991, about 8 PM

   Saddam strikes first

   Twelve days into the air war, Iraq launches its only major ground offensive of the Gulf War. Three divisions move south out of occupied Kuwait on the night of 29 January: the 5th Mechanized Division down the coastal highway toward the Saudi border town of Ra's al-Khafji, evacuated since August; the 3d Armored Division through the al-Wafrah oilfields; and the 1st Mechanized Division screening the western flank. Facing them along the border berm is only a thin screen: Marine light armored companies and reconnaissance, ANGLICO and Special Forces teams in a chain of observation posts, with Saudi National Guard battalions behind the coast.

2. 29–30 January, 8 PM to dawn

   The fight at OP-4

   At OP-4, the As-Zabr police post on the 'heel' of the border, the Iraqi 6th Armored Brigade drives at the gap in the berm. The reconnaissance platoon calls fire and pulls out; Company D, 3d Light Armored Infantry Battalion, part of Task Force Shepherd, engages with LAV-25s and TOW-armed LAV-ATs while A-10s, Harriers and other aircraft arrive from about 9:30 PM. In the confusion two Marine vehicles are destroyed by friendly fire — one LAV-AT, by most accounts, by a TOW missile fired from another Marine vehicle, and one LAV-25 by an A-10's Maverick missile — and eleven Marines are killed. The Iraqis are stopped and fall back by morning, having lost, by the official account, some 22 tanks and carriers. Farther west, Company C, 1st LAI, and aircraft turn back a 1st Mechanized Division probe at OP-6.

3. 29 January 10 PM – 30 January, after midnight

   Khafji falls

   On the coast the 5th Mechanized Division's 15th Mechanized Brigade rolls down the highway, overrunning OP-8 and OP-7; the observer teams escape south and into the sabkhas, and the 5th Battalion of the 2d Saudi National Guard Brigade, screening the road, withdraws under fire. By about half past midnight Iraqi tanks and carriers are in the empty town. Two six-man Marine reconnaissance teams from the 3d Reconnaissance Battalion, under Corporals Lentz and Ingraham, stay hidden inside Khafji — by one account one in the north-east corner, the other in the southern half overlooking the main street — and begin calling artillery and air strikes on the Iraqis around them. An AC-130 gunship catches part of the column on the road.

4. 30 January

   Cordon and bombardment

   King Fahd and General Khaled bin Sultan want Khafji retaken by Arab forces, and since it lies in the Saudi sector the Marines support rather than lead. The Saudi plan is first to cut the town off: the 5th Battalion blocks the north, while the Qatari armored battalion and the 7th Battalion block the highway south near a gas station two miles below the town, where Colonel Admire's Task Force Taro (3d Marines) has forward elements. Marine artillery of 1st Battalion, 12th Marines, Cobra gunships and Harriers strike Iraqi vehicles, many directed by the trapped teams. Two U.S. Army soldiers who drive a truck into the town are captured.

5. 30 January 5 PM – 31 January 3 AM

   First attack at the arches

   After a short Marine artillery preparation, the 7th Battalion's V-150 armored cars and Qatari AMX-30 tanks under Lieutenant Colonel Matar push up the highway to the arches at the town's southern entrance — the focal point of every Saudi attack. In a confused night fight they are held at the edge of town and pull back in the early hours, having lost at least one V-150; the Qataris knock out three T-55s and capture a fourth. The recon teams, now on rooftops, call fire close around their own buildings.

6. 31 January, dawn to noon

   Spirit 03 and the renewed attack

   Shortly after dawn the AC-130H gunship Spirit 03, still supporting the Marines after first light, is hit by a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile and falls into the shallow Gulf off the coast; all 14 airmen are killed, the largest single U.S. Air Force loss of the war. At about 8:30 AM the Saudis and Qataris attack again: the 5th Battalion from the north and north-east, the 7th Battalion from the south toward the recon teams, the 8th Battalion ordered into the town at 10 AM. Harriers and Cobras under ANGLICO control hit Iraqi carriers in the streets, and by about noon the 7th Battalion reaches both teams and brings them out.

7. 30 January – 1 February

   The columns that never arrived

   Behind the fight in the town, Coalition air power — cued by the new E-8 Joint STARS radar aircraft — hunts the Iraqi follow-on echelons in Kuwait. A-10s, A-6s with Rockeye, Marine F/A-18s, AV-8Bs and B-52s strike the 3d Armored Division in the al-Wafrah area and 5th Mechanized Division columns on the coastal road north of the border; the Gulf War Air Power Survey counts 267 sorties in the five kill boxes around the attack over 29–31 January. By postwar estimates the 5th Mechanized Division lost about a quarter of its tanks, and the reinforcements meant to hold Khafji never reach it.

8. 1 February 1991

   Khafji retaken

   The 10th Battalion of the National Guard takes over clearing the town and by 4 PM on 1 February reaches its northern edge and links up with the 5th Battalion; the remaining Iraqis surrender or slip away. Saudi losses are given as 18 killed and some 50 wounded; the Marines lost eleven killed at OP-4 and the Air Force 14 aboard Spirit 03; Iraqi losses are uncertain — by U.S. estimates around 300 killed and some 400 captured, with at least 90 vehicles destroyed. Khafji, the first major ground battle of the war, shows the Coalition how vulnerable Iraqi armor is to air attack once it moves.