page_title: 1991 uprisings in Iraq
section_title: Loyalist offensive
hierarchical_section_title: 1991 uprisings in Iraq / Revolution / Loyalist offensive
caption_attribution_description: English: Front of US Government leaflet equating Saddam with death
context_page_description: The 1991 uprisings in Iraq were a series of popular rebellions in northern and southern Iraq in March and April 1991 during a ceasefire in the Gulf War. The mostly uncoordinated insurgency, often referred to as the Sha'aban Intifada among Shi'ite Arabs and as the National Uprising among Kurds, was fueled by the perception that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had become vulnerable to regime change. This perception of weakness was largely the result of the outcome of two prior wars: the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, both of which occurred within a single decade and devastated the population and economy of Iraq.
  Within the first two weeks, most of Iraq's cities and provinces fell to rebel forces. Participants of the uprising were a diverse mix of ethnic, religious and political affiliations, including military mutineers, Shia Arab Islamists, Kurdish nationalists, and far-left groups. Following initial victories, the revolution was held back from continued success by internal divisions as well as a lack of anticipated American support.
context_section_description: On March 7, in an effort to quiet the uprisings, Saddam Hussein offered the Shia and Kurd leaders shares in the central government in exchange for loyalty, but the opposing groups rejected the proposal. At the height of the revolution, the government lost effective control over 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. However, the people of Baghdad remained largely passive, as the Dawa Party, the Communist Party, and the pro-Syrian Ba'ath splinter party had all failed to build underground structures in the capital. There was only a limited unrest in the Shia-populated vast slum of Saddam City while the rest of Baghdad remained calm.
  Soon, regime loyalists regrouped and went on an offensive to reclaim the cities. They were helped by the fact that about half of tanks of the elite and politically reliable Republican Guard managed to escape from the Saddam-proclaimed "mother of all battles" in Kuwait and that the Guard headquarters units also survived the war. In addition, the Gulf War ceasefire agreement of March 3 prohibited the Iraqi military's use of fixed-wing aircraft over the country, but allowed them to fly helicopters because most bridges had been destroyed. This was because General Norman Schwarzkopf accepted the request of an Iraqi general to fly helicopters, including armed gunships, to transport government officials because of destroyed transport infrastructure, acting without Pentagon or White House instructions; almost immediately, the Iraqis began using the helicopters as gunships to put down the uprisings. The outgunned rebels had few heavy weapons and few surface-to-air missiles, which made them almost defenseless against helicopter gunships and indiscriminate artillery barrages when the Ba'athists responded to the uprisings with crushing force. According to Human Rights Watch, "in their attempts to retake cities, and after consolidating control, loyalist forces killed thousands of anyone who opposes them whether a rebel or a civilian by firing indiscriminately into the opposing areas; executing them on the streets, in homes and in hospitals; rounding up suspects, especially young men, during house-to-house searches, and arresting them with or without charge or shooting them en masse; and using helicopters to attack those who try to flee the cities."
  There were several reports of chemical warfare attacks, including of a nerve agent being used during the assault on Basra. Following an investigation, the United Nations (UN) found that there was no evidence that Iraq used chemical weapons to repress the uprisings, but did not rule out the possibility that Iraq could have used phosgene gas which would not have been detectable after the attack. According to the U.S. government's Iraq Survey Group, Iraqi military did in fact use the nerve agent sarin, as well as non-lethal CS gas, on a massive scale when "dozens" of improvised helicopter bombing sorties were flown against rebels in Karbala and the surrounding areas in March 1991; evidence of apparent mustard gas attacks have been also reported in the areas of Najaf and Karbala by the U.S. forces that have been stationed there at the time.
  In the south, Saddam's forces quelled all but a scattering of the resistance by the end of March. On March 29, SCIRI leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim conceded that Shia rebels withdrew from the cities and that fighting was limited to rural areas. The Kurdish uprising in the north of the country collapsed even more quickly than it began. After ousting the Peshmerga from Kirkuk on March 29, the government tanks rolled into Dahuk and Irbil on March 30, Zakho on April 1, and Sulaymaniyah, the last important town held by the rebels, on April 3. The advance of government forces was halted at Kore, a narrow valley near the ruins of Qaladiza, where a successful defense was held by the Kurds led by Massoud Barzani. According to the United States Department of State and the Foreign Affairs group of the Parliament of Australia, Iranian rebel organization People's Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI, also known as MEK), sheltered in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, assisted the Re
caption: U.S. Gulf War leaflet depicting Saddam Hussein as Death
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