Military history of Iraq killing thirty-seven of the crew. On August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait. The United States led an international coalition which heavily bombed Iraq and freed Kuwait in 1991. After this war, sanctions were imposed on Iraq as well as a north and south no fly zones, and during the 1990s, Iraq was frequently bombed by American and British aircraft in small sorties. In January 1993, the US launched a cruise missile attack against Iraq, because of it not dismantling police posts near the border with Kuwait. In June 1993, another US cruise missile attack was launched because of
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.