Despite the Saudis' high regard for Haifji, the number of Arab coalition troops actually stationed in the small city of Haifji is very small. The reason for this is nothing more than that it is too close to the border, under the direct attack of the Iraqi artillery, and also shrouded in the dark clouds that the Iraqi army may attack at any time, so the headquarters and main force of the Arab coalition are located south of Khafji, and only a part of the 2nd Contingent of the Saudi National Guard is stationed there, which is mainly composed of infantry, and only a small number of military jeeps equipped with recoilless guns. They faced an enemy consisting of a mechanized infantry battalion and a reinforced tank company of about 40 BMP-1s, BTR infantry fighting vehicles and 12 MBT-1000 Rhino 1 tanks.

These Rhino I tanks were sold to Iraq by NORINCO five years ago, and about 500 Rhino I tanks have been sold to Iraq in the inland over the past few years, and these Rhino tanks are also the most advanced tanks in service with the Iraqi army. During the Iran-Iraq war, the Rhino I tank achieved absolute suppression of the Iranian army, which also made Iran very dissatisfied, and the Iraqi army lost about 100 Rhino I in the war, and now the Iraqi army still has less than 400 Rhino I in service.

Saddam Hussein also equipped these Rhino I models to his most confidant troops to defend his own security, while the Republican Guard in Kuwait is actually not many units equipped with such tanks, and the main force is still the T-72 and Type 69 second-generation tanks. MBT-1000 is a quasi-third-generation tank to be precise, better than the second-generation tank, and can also compete with the early model of the M1 of the US military, even the PLA attaches great importance to the MBT-1000 tank of the Iraqi army, although it is much worse than the Rhino II type, but it is also threatening enough.

Although the PLA Army's Fire Cloud-class reconnaissance aircraft informed the Arab coalition of the Iraqi army's movements in advance, the Arab coalition forces were unexpectedly slow to react, and the commander of this force, General Khaled, did not even unify the opinions of the leaders of other armies in his own army, so that he missed the opportunity to support the National Guard stationed in Haifji.

The Iraqi side was also cunning, and when approaching the Saudi positions north of Haifji, the turrets of the tanks were turned sideways, showing no hostile intent, disguised as troops who had come to surrender, which caused confusion among the Saudi National Guard, but soon the turrets of the Rhino I tanks turned around again, and then launched a surprise attack on the Saudi troops stationed in the northern positions.

The weakened Saudi National Guard did not hold out for long, and they immediately passed the news of the attack to General Khalid in the rear, and at the same time fought and retreated, and finally withdrew from Khafji. Without the Saudi garrison, the Iraqis successfully occupied the small city.

As soon as the Iraqis took Khafji, the U.S. military's air power responded, and it was the Chinese fighters who covered the operation 80 kilometers away, so the U.S. military still had a relatively surplus of fighters to support the Arab coalition forces.

Several F-18C fighters that took off from the nearby USS John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier were loaded with bombs and came to the skies over Khafji. The bombs fired by the Hornet destroyed several Iraqi armored vehicles and an MBT-1000 tank, but after a brief panic, the Iraqi army effectively hid with the help of the buildings in the small city, making it difficult for the Hornet's fleet to carry out effective strikes. The Iraqi soldiers occupied the low-rise buildings and they were scattered, and the fighters could not identify the enemy in those buildings, so the US military's intention to break up the Iraqi army by air strikes alone was disillusioned.

The belated arrival of the multinational force air force is mainly related to the timing, and this night the multinational force once again launched a wave of relatively large-scale air strikes against Iraq, including the air forces of the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and other countries sent hundreds of warplanes to strike at military and civilian targets in Iraq.

General Khalid himself personally went to the town of Khafji to conduct reconnaissance. At the same time, he instructed one tank company of the 8th Saudi Brigade and one tank company of the Qatari battalion to join him about 6 kilometres west of Khaifji. Upon arriving outside Khafji, Khalid found that the Iraqi army had only two battalions in size and only 11 tanks, one of which had been destroyed by the U.S. military. However, with the strength of his reconnaissance troops, he was unable to launch a battle to recapture Khafji.

General Khalid then began to request air support from Prince Sultan, the commander-in-chief of the command of the 1st Theater of Operations in the East of the battlefield (the Arab Coalition Theater, located east of the 2nd Eastern Theater of Operations of the 310th Division).

In this war, the Saudi Air Force is actually not inferior to the United States and China, and stronger than the aircraft groups sent by the British and French forces. This is largely due to the two arms deals that Prince Sultan himself made with China. The Saudi Air Force has 200 Thunder and 260 JH-7B/FC-9 fighters, both of which have multi-purpose capabilities, but the air is superior to the ground, the only bad thing is that Saudi Arabia really does not have so many pilots to fly these fighters.

It is precisely because of the lack of pilots who can fly these advanced fighters that Saudi Arabia has such a strong reserve of air force equipment, but it can only use a little more than half of this reserve. There are only about 120 FC-1 Thunder and 100 JH-7B Flying Cloud Leopards that can be put into battle normally on the Saudi side, but no matter how you look at it, it can be regarded as a considerable force.

General Khalid was ambitious, and after seeing the poor effectiveness of the U.S. air strikes, he was convinced that with the help of the Saudi Air Force and a little help from the Chinese Air Force, the entire small city of Haifji could be razed to the ground, and then they would be able to avoid the danger of being dragged into street fighting and urban warfare, causing huge casualties.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states do not want to involve too much Chinese or American ground power in this battle, they hope to use their own military to defeat the Iraqi army in a dignified manner, and in this way establish the image of the Arab coalition and improve the morale of the Arab coalition.

As a result, General Khalid requested the support of the Chinese Air Force for air power, but did not request ground support from the 310th Division of the Chinese Army, which was close at hand. This was definitely not a smart choice, because if the 310th Division, which was fully rearmed and powerful, could be divided into a unit to support the Arab coalition forces, the battle would have become much easier. However, there are all kinds of careful thinking in the coalition forces, so in fact, there is no optimal allocation of resources.

In order to support the Saudi operation, the Chinese Air Force launched an entire J-9 Shadow Leopard Air Regiment (24 aircraft) and a bombing squadron of H-8 Ares bombers (4 aircraft) into this operation. Correspondingly, the Saudi side also dispatched 16 FC-1 Thunder fighters and 24 JH-7B fighters to begin the most terrible air attacks on the Iraqi troops stationed in Haifji and the Iraqi troops that are gathering in Kuwait.

The fighters used on both sides are Chinese-made fighters, and there is no problem in terms of weapons and information communication, so it is relatively more convenient than Chinese fighters and US fighters to cooperate in combat.

General Khalid judged that the main purpose of the air raid was to interrupt the battlefield, and after learning of the successful occupation of Khaifji, the Iraqi army began to assemble two divisions of the Third Army of the Republican Guard in Kuwait. Now Hyfji's defenders are only two battalions, and they have been taught a lesson by the US army once before, and they have lost some of them, and although they may face harsh street battles to recapture Hyfji, it will not be particularly difficult. But if the two divisions of the Iraqi army were allowed to follow the highway all the way to Haifji, then the price paid by the Arab coalition to recapture Haifji would be extremely high.

Before the air raids were launched, there was another hiccup. On the roof of a low-rise building in Khafji, two reconnaissance groups of 11 U.S. Marines were besieged by Iraqi forces. The main task of the U.S. Marine Corps is to identify the Iraqi army's targets and then guide other firepower units, such as fighter planes, naval guns, and ground artillery. Similar tasks are also found in PLA, but now PLA has become more accustomed to using safer Beidou systems or drone positioning methods, and is still more cautious about sending a guide team into Longtan Tiger's Den.

Equipped with telescopes, night vision devices, laser positioning devices, and classified radio stations to communicate with the command, the U.S. Marine Corps guidance team typically lasts only 48 hours per operation, but once in position, the vehicles they arrive at the mission site leave and they cannot return unless they come to pick them up. No one expected the Iraqis to rush into the army, and the two teams did not take into account that the Iraqis would send troops to occupy Khafji before they acted. When the other units that assisted here, including the Saudi Marine Company, were withdrawn from Khafji, the two guidance groups of the Air-Sea Artillery Liaison Company were cut off by the rapidly advancing Iraqi forces.

In order to rescue the two lead groups, the Multinational Force organized a surprise attack prior to the air strike, which consisted of a company from the 2nd Brigade of the Saudi National Guard, and a company from the 8th Brigade of the Royal Saudi Army, the former as an assault force and the latter as a reserve.

The Saudi army took the area south of the city by surprise and the Iraqi army, which had only two battalions, had not yet set up a defensive line, so the Saudi army, equipped with multi-purpose infantry vehicles, broke through to the building where the two U.S. Marine teams were trapped, and the action was so rapid that the Iraqi army did not have time to react much.

However, after relying on the high-speed rush of multi-purpose infantry vehicles into Khafji and saving two American teams, the infantry combat vehicle assault team ran into trouble, and two Iraqi MBT-1000 tanks appeared in front of them.