On 7 February 1984 (during the First War of the Cities), Saddam ordered his air force to attack eleven Iranian cities; bombardments ceased on 22 February 1984. Though Saddam had aimed for the attacks to demoralise Iran and force them to negotiate, they had little effect. Iraq's air force took heavy losses, and Iran struck back, hitting Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Nevertheless, the attacks resulted in tens of thousands of civilian casualties on both sides, and became known as the first "war of the cities". It was estimated that 4,700 Iranian civilians were killed and 22,000 were wounded during the raids in February alone. There were five such major exchanges throughout the course of the war, and multiple minor ones. While interior cities such as Tehran, Tabriz, Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz did receive numerous raids, it was the cities of western Iran that suffered the most death and destruction.