In the last 60 years, there have been a number of conflicts in the Middle East. Many of these conflicts have been part of the Arab-Israeli conflict: five wars between Israel and surrounding Arab countries (in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982). See also List of conflicts in the Maghreb.
As part of the broader tensions between monarchical, pro-Western governments and Nasserite, socialist governments, the Syrian governments of the sixties were opposed to the Jordanian monarchy; in 1960, the assassination of the Jordanian prime minister Hazza al-Majali was blamed on Syria (at the time, the United Arab Republic.) Tensions increased further after King Hussein ended official support for the PLO in 1966; in September 1970, a Syrian military unit crossed into Jordan to aid the PLO against the Jordanian army (see Black September in Jordan). The Syrian force was repulsed, but relations remained tense and were severed in July 1971. In 1975, Jordan and Syria attempted to put aside past hostilities between them and create a new alliance. In 1979, King Hussein of Jordan proposed an alternative to the Camp David accords to which Hafez al-Assad of Syria strongly objected; this marked the beginning of a rapid deterioration in Jordanian-Syrian relations. In 1979 Syria accused the Kingdom of Jordan of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood's attacks against Assad's government. Since then the tensions have dissipated and now relations between the two countries are normal.
Egypt aided one side in a civil war in Yemen from 1962 to 1967. The war expanded into a fight with another Arab nation, Saudi Arabia, with Egypt using mustard gas on Saudi Arabian airfields. After the Israeli defeat of Egypt in the 1967 war the Egyptian army, number 60,000, withdrew from Yemen.
In 1964, a leftist separatist rebellion began in the Omani province of Dhofar; it was aided by South Yemen and to a lesser extent other Marxist states. The government of Oman was aided first mainly by the United Kingdom, then Iran, as well as several other non-Marxist states. The rebellion ended in 1976.
(1975–1990) Because of religious segregation and a government only consisting of the Christian elite, the country became socially unstable. Interference from the outside, mainly Syria and Israel, made the situation grow out of control and caused a civil war between the Christian elite and other religious groups. The civil war spanned over two decades and grabbed the attention of the world through abductions of Westerners. Ultimately the United Nations decided to interfere with the situation. By trial and error the situation ultimately got under control, but tensions still rest in the Lebanese society, and although the war ended, the risk of civil war is still eminent.
Following Egypt's first negotiations with Israel in 1973, Libya became hostile to Egypt. In 1977, not long after demonstrators in the two countries attacked each other's consulates, the two countries fought a four-day war (July 21-July 24) during which several Libyan aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The war ended with no change to the status quo ante.
Iraq-Kuwait clashes
Kuwait and Iraq had a serious territorial dispute that led to armed warfare in 1973 and again in 1976. Iraq wanted Kuwait's oil and ports, and argued that Kuwait was rightfully theirs due to pre-British imperial boundaries. In 1990 Iraq occupied Kuwait, but was expelled in 1991.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was launched from Kuwait territory.
Sometimes called the First Persian Gulf War. In this war Syria entered on the side of Iran, against Iraq, with aid and supplies.
UN-Iraq conflict
- During the Gulf War, a United Nations force led by the United States restored Kuwaiti sovereignty after the 1990 Iraqi invasion.
US/UK/Australia-Iraq conflict
- In 2003, the United States, The United Kingdom and Australia invaded and occupied Iraq after a dispute over the status of the Iraqi Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons programs. This war is sometimes known as the Second Gulf War.
Between the 1990/91 and 2003/06 wars, the US, UK, and (until 1996) France continued to enforce no-fly zones over large areas of Iraq, to protect Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis from air attack by the Iraqi government. Many people of Iraq and other countries considered this to be a continuous invasion of Iraqi airspace, and thus, one war from 1990-2006. The United Nations ran a maritime blockade Iraq's Persian Gulf oil ports between the two wars, to enforce sanctions in response to Iraq's refusal to comply fully with UN inspections, to verify that it no longer had weapons of mass destruction.
General conflicts of the US and its allies
"War on Terrorism" is a collective term for US involvement in several countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_conflict under GFDL
