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 intended the attacks to demoralise Iran and force them to negotiate, they had little effect, and Iran quickly repaired the damage. Moreover, Iraq's air force took heavy losses and Iran struck back, hitting Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. 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 1,200 Iranian civilians were killed during the raids in February alone. There would be 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 received numerous raids, the cities of western Iran suffered the most.