after Kuwait increased its oil production by 40 percent. Tensions between the two countries increased further after Iraq alleged that Kuwait was slant drilling oil from its share of the Rumaila field.
On 2 August 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and annexed Kuwait. A long-time ally of Saddam Hussein, Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh was quick to back Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Saddam Hussein, then President of Iraq, deposed the Emir of Kuwait, Jaber Al-Sabah, and initially propped up a puppet r�gime before annexing Kuwait and installing Ali Hassan al-Majid as the new governor of Kuwait. During the Iraqi occupation, about 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians were killed and more than 300,000 residents fled the country. After a series of failed diplomatic negotiations, the United States-led coalition of thirty-four nations fought the Gulf War to remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. On 26 February 1991, the coalition succeeded in driving out the Iraqi forces, restoring the Kuwaiti Emir to power. Kuwait paid the coalition forces US$17 billion for their war efforts.
During their retreat from the coalition, the Iraqi armed forces carried out a scorched earth policy by damaging 737 oil wells in Kuwait, of which approximately 600 were set on fire. It was estimated that by the time Kuwait was liberated from Iraqi occupation, about 5 to 6 million barrels (950,000 m) of oil was being burned in a single day because of these fires.
Oil and soot accumulation had affected the entire Persian Gulf region and large oil lakes were created holding approximately 25 to 50 million barrels (7,900,000 m) of oil and covering 5% of Kuwait's land area. In total, about 11 million barrels (1,700,000 m) of oil was released into the Persian Gulf and an additional 2% of Kuwait's 96 billion barrels (1.53�10 m) of crude oil reserves were burned by the time the oil fires were brought under control. The fires took more than nine months to extinguish fully and it took Kuwait more than
