Saddam Hussein's government sought to annex several territories. In the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam claimed that Iraq had the right to hold sovereignty to the east bank of the Shatt al-Arab river held by Iran. Iraq had officially agreed to a compromise to hold the border at the centre-line of the river in the 1975 Algiers Agreement in return for Iran to end its support for Kurdish rebels in Iraq. The overthrow of the Iranian monarchy and the rise of Ruhollah Khomeini to power in 1979 deteriorated Iran-Iraq relations and following ethnic clashes within Khuzestan and border clashes between Iranian and Iraqi forces, Iraq regarded the Algiers Agreement as nullified and abrogated it and a few days later Iraqi forces launched a full-scale invasion of Iran that resulted in the Iran-Iraq War. In addition, Saddam supported the Iraq-based Ahwaz Liberation Movement and their goal of breaking their claimed territory of Ahwaz away from Iran, in the belief that the movement would rouse Khuzestan's Arabs to support the Iraqi invasion. In the Gulf War, Iraq occupied and annexed Kuwait before being expelled by an international military coalition that supported the restoration of Kuwait's sovereignty.