The Battle of Basra was fought in the beginning of the 1991 Iraqi uprisings following the

Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

. The battle started after demoralized

troop A troop is a military sub-subunit, originally a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a squadron. In many armies a troop is the equivalent element to the infantry section or platoon. Exceptions are the US Cavalry and the King's Troo ...

s throughout

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

began to rebel against

Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician and revolutionary who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 1979 until Saddam Hussein statue destruction, his overthrow in 2003 during the 2003 invasion of Ira ...

's Ba'athist regime, in particular after a tank driver in Basra fired at a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

portrait of

Basra Basra () is a port city in Iraq, southern Iraq. It is the capital of the eponymous Basra Governorate, as well as the List of largest cities of Iraq, third largest city in Iraq overall, behind Baghdad and Mosul. Located near the Iran–Iraq bor ...

became a chaotic battlefield between military defectors and

Republican Guard A republican guard, sometimes called a national guard, is a state organization of a country (often a republic, hence the name ''Republican'') which typically serves to protect the head of state and the government, and thus is often synonymous wit ...

, with most of the fighting taking place at close quarters. Most of

had been retaken by mid March, but rebels in parts such as Tanuma managed to hold out until mid April. After Ba'athist forces had regained control, they engaged in a crackdown against civilians and suspected supporters of the uprising.

Uprising

1 March

The turmoil began in

on 1 March 1991, one day after the Gulf War ceasefire, when a

T-72 The T-72 is a family of Soviet Union, Soviet main battle tanks that entered production in 1973. The T-72 was a development based on the T-64 using thought and design of the previous Object 167M. About 25,000 T-72 tanks have been built, and refu ...

tank gunner returning home after Iraq's defeat in Kuwait fired a shell into an enormous portrait of Saddam Hussein hanging over the city's main square and the other soldiers applauded.Flashback: the 1991 Iraqi revolt
BBC News, 21 August 2007.

4 March

By 4 March, the forces loyal to Saddam Hussein had managed to gain the upper hand in the battle, and began a brutal counter-offensive characterised by the arbitrary killing of civilians, with government tanks reportedly firing at buildings and civilians and Republican Guardsmen engaging in massacres against the civilian population. The fighting entered a stand-still by early April and the local resistance and the Republican Guardsmen entered a truce.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Basra 1991 1991 Iraqi uprisings Battles involving Iraq Collective punishment Military history of Basra Massacres committed by Iraq Violence against Shia Muslims in Iraq Massacres in 1991 March 1991 in Iraq April 1991 in Iraq 20th-century mass murder in Iraq 20th century in Basra