Word: saudi
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...basic elements are clear enough. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week, Iraqi troops, tanks and armored vehicles crossed the Saudi border at several points between Khafji and Umm Hujul, 50 miles to the west. On Wednesday night they occupied Khafji, six miles south of the border; it had been abandoned on Jan. 17 by residents fleeing out of the range of Iraqi artillery. Saudis and troops from the Persian Gulf sheikdom of Qatar, supported by Marine air attacks and artillery fire, retook the town on Thursday, but only after house-to-house fighting that raged from...
Statistically, the Iraqis took a beating. By Friday afternoon the Saudis and Qataris had captured 500 Iraqis in and around Khafji, according to a U.S. briefing officer in Riyadh. Allied officials said 30 Iraqis were killed and another 37 were wounded. Saudi casualties were not much lighter: 18 dead, 29 wounded and four missing...
...destroyed, but other counts for the border battles as a whole ran as high as 80 vehicles. Correspondents who were allowed into Khafji Thursday afternoon reported that the streets were littered with the burning hulks of Soviet-made armored personnel carriers, knocked out by American TOW missiles fired by Saudi and Qatari infantrymen. U.S. Marines lost three light armored vehicles (LAVs) in the fighting around Umm Hujul...
...battle also had some unpleasant surprises for the U.S. and its allies. Despite widespread reports of low morale among Iraqi frontline troops, those in Khafji fought tenaciously, prolonging the battle for hours after the Saudis announced they had retaken the town. One column of tanks approached the Saudi border with their guns pointing backward, which allied forces took as a sign that the troops manning them wanted to defect; instead the Iraqis swiveled their turrets around rapidly and opened fire. There was a bitter possibility that the very first Americans known to have died in combat in the gulf...
Bush lieutenants admit to two other mild disappointments. Scud missile launchers in Iraq have taken a longer time to find and destroy than expected. General Schwarzkopf reported that 35 Scuds were lobbed against Israel or Saudi Arabia in the first seven days of the war, only 18 in the second seven days. And in the first half of the war's third week only four launchings were recorded: three warheads fell on or near the Israeli-occupied West Bank, causing no reported casualties, and another aimed at Riyadh was destroyed by a Patriot missile. But 1,500 sorties have been...