Al Hussein ( missile ) Al Hussein or al - Husayn ( Arabic : الحسين ) is the designation of an Iraqi ballistic missile . The missile was the result of upgrading the Soviet made Scud in order to achieve a longer range . The weapon was widely used by the Iraqi Army during the Iran - Iraq War and the Gulf War of 1991 . Development . The origins of the Al - Hussein could be traced back to the first stages of the war with Iran . Iraq was the first belligerent to use long range artillery rockets during the Iran – Iraq War , firing limited numbers of Frog - 7 s at the towns of Dezful and Ahvaz . Iran responded with Scud - Bs obtained from Libya . These missiles can hit a target 185 miles away , therefore key Iraqi cities like Sulaymaniya , Kirkuk , and Baghdad itself came within the range of this weapon . Iraq , which also deployed the Scud - B , was conversely unable to strike the main Iranian industrial centers , including the capital , Teheran , because these are located more than 300 miles from the border . To surmount the Iranian advantage , Iraqi engineers designed a program to upgrade the original Scuds into a series of ballistic missiles whose range would surpass 500 miles . The assembly facility was located near Taji . The first development , called Al - Hussein or Project 1728 , with a range of 400 miles , allowed the Iraqi army to attack deep inside the Iranian boundaries . The range was extended by reducing the original 945 kg warhead to 500 kg and increasing the propellant capacity . The warhead carried HE , although it had Chemical , Biological and Nuclear capabilities . According to UN inspectors reports , the Iraqis were able to produce all the major components of the system by 1991 . The Al - Hussein was 12 . 46 meters long and had a diameter of 0 . 88 . The guidance was inertial , without terminal phase . The altitude where the motor burnt out was 31 miles , while the trajectory highest altitude or " apogee " , was 94 miles . The accuracy for the impact , or Circular error probable , was estimated in a radius of 1 , 000 meters , and the missile launch weight was 6 , 400 kg . Its flight time was of about seven minutes for the maximum range . The missile fuel was common to every tactical missile of the Cold war : a mix of kerosene , ignited by a nitric acid oxidizer , called IRFNA . Each missile loaded 4 , 500 kg of liquid propellant , composed by a 22 % of kerosene and 78 % of IRFNA . The Iraqis also modified the extension of the launch rail of 11 Soviet - produced MAZ - 543 to fit them for the longer local - built missiles . The unit responsible for the maintenance and operation of the new missiles was initially the 224 Brigade , already established since 1976 to deal with the R - 17 Scuds imported from the Soviet Union in 1972 . By 1989 , a second army Brigade was formed , the 223 , equipped with 4 locally developed trailer launchers , known as the Al - Nida . There were also a second indigenous launcher , the Al - Waleed , but apparently it never became operational . Some concrete silo s were built west of Ar Rutba , near the border with Jordan . They were destroyed by precision bombing s carried out by USAF F - 15s during the first hours of Operation Desert Storm . Operational history . Iran - Iraq war ( 1980 - 1988 ) . Up to 200 missiles were launched against Iran between 1987 and 1988 , killing some 2 , 000 people . Teheran , Qom and Isfahan became the usual targets . Their poor accuracy , while mostly ineffective to conduct a major strategic campaign , made of them basically weapons of terror , forcing thousands of refugees out of the main Iranian cities . This exchange of ballistic missiles was indeed known as ' the war of the cities ' . The full - scale campaign lasted from 29 February 1988 until April 20 , when a truce was agreed by both sides . Iraq , which had been looking for some kind of compromise gesture from Iran , is largely viewed as the ' winner ' by some authors . According to Iranian sources , the fuselage and warhead were prone to break into fragments while re - entering the atmosphere . Ironically , this phenomenon would later represent an advantage as a counter - measure against the Patriot missile during the 1991 Persian Gulf War . Persian Gulf War ( 1991 ) . Eighty - eight of these modified Scuds were fired at Saudi Arabia ( 46 ) and Israel ( 42 ) during January and February 1991 . The greatest tactical achievement of the Al - Hussein was the destruction of a US military barracks in Dhahran , Saudi Arabia , on 25 February 1991 , when 28 soldiers were killed and other 110 injured , effectively taking out of action an entire supply company , composed mainly of reservists from Pennsylvania . One of the units involved in this incident , the 14th Quartermaster Detachment , specializing in water - purification , suffered the heaviest toll among US troops deployed in the Persian Gulf , with 81 % of its soldiers killed or wounded . The other unit badly hit by the strike was the 47th Quartermaster Detachment . The failure of the Patriot system in tracking the Iraqi missile over Dhahran was provoked by a shift in the range gate of the radar , due to the continuous use of the software for more than 100 hours without resetting . Only 10 of the 46 Al - Hussein launched at Saudi Arabia caused significant damage : two strikes on US military bases ( including the barracks at Dhahran ) , one on a Saudi government building , and the remaining seven on civilian facilities . The following is a detailed list of these attacks : Besides the American soldiers , Saudi authorities reported one security guard killed and about 70 civilians injured as result of the missile strikes . Thirty - eight of the 42 missiles aimed at Israel landed within the boundaries of that country ; the other four fell on the West Bank area . Although thousands of houses and apartments were damaged by the strikes , only two people died directly as consequence of the impacts . Another 12 lost their life from indirect causes ( suffocation while wearing gas - mask s and heart attacks ) . From the strategic point of view , the threat posed by the " Al - Hussein " was an Iraqi success , since it forced the coalition air forces to divert 40 % of their missions to hunt the launchers along with their support vehicles and supplies . The ground war was postponed one week for this reason . End of the program . Under the terms of the ceasefire of March 1991 , corroborated by the resolution 687 of the UN Security Council , a commission ( UNSCOM ) was established to assure the dismantling of the Iraqi missile program . They were only allowed to purchase or produce missiles with a range no longer than 150 km . At the end of the war , the Iraqi government declared it had only 61 " Al - Hussein " and other ballistic missiles in its arsenal . These weapons were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision . This process was completed by July 1991 . The western powers were however suspicious that the Iraqi army may have hidden as many as 200 missiles . The Iraqis took advantage of the provisions of the ceasefire by developing two types of short - range ballistic missiles , the Ababil - 100 and the Al - Samoud , which were in an experimental phase at the time of the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 . These projects were part of the " casus belli " raised by the American administration against Saddam Hussein .