Armenians in Kuwait British mandate then. In August 1990, Iraq declared war on Kuwait and invaded its tiny neighbour. During this time, many Kuwaiti-Armenians left for neighbouring Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf. Other Armenians fled to Baghdad by car, from where they fled to Syria. The remaining Armenians were mostly workers with no way of escaping. During the invasion, the Armenian school and church were shut down and guarded in order to stop looters from attacking the institutions. The Armenian institutions remained unscathed during the war. After the Iraqis were driven out of Kuwait by the coalition forces,
Liberation of Kuwait campaign the U.S. Marines stopped at the outskirts of Kuwait City, allowing their Coalition allies to take and occupy Kuwait City, effectively ending combat operations in the Kuwaiti theater of the war. After four days of fighting, all Iraqi troops were expelled from Kuwait, ending a nearly seven-month occupation of Kuwait by Iraq. A little over 1,100 casualties were suffered by the Coalition. Estimates of Iraqi casualties range from 30,000 to 150,000. Iraq lost thousands of vehicles, while the advancing Coalition lost relatively few; Iraq's obsolete Soviet T-72 tanks proved no match for the American M1 Abrams and British Challenger tanks.