From 1965 until 1985, the Bedoon were treated like Kuwaiti citizens and guaranteed citizenship, they had free access to education, health care and all other privileges of Kuwaiti citizens. At the height of the Iran–Iraq War, the Bedoon were reclassified as "foreigners" in the Kuwaiti government's databases and denied Kuwaiti citizenship. The Kuwaiti government has actively engaged in an ethnic cleansing policy against the Bedoon. The government policy is to impose false nationalities (legally ineffective) on the Bedoon. In 1985, the then emir Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah escaped an assassination attempt. Later that same year, the government changed the Bedoon's status from that of legal residents without nationality to illegal residents. By 1986, the Bedoon were fully excluded from the same social and economic rights enjoyed by Kuwaiti citizens because the Al Sabah ruling family needed to isolate the Bedoon from the rest of the society. The Iran–Iraq War threatened Kuwait's internal stability and the country feared the sectarian background of the stateless Bedoon.