The battle started after demoralized troops throughout Iraq began to rebel against Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime, in particular after a tank driver in Basra fired at a public portrait of Saddam Hussein.

Basra became a chaotic battlefield between military defectors and Republican Guard, with most of the fighting taking place at close quarters.

After Ba'athist forces had regained control, they engaged in a crackdown against civilians and suspected supporters of the uprising.

[1] The turmoil began in Basra on 1 March 1991, one day after the Gulf War ceasefire, when a T-72 tank gunner returning home after Iraq's defeat in Kuwait fired a shell into an enormous portrait of Saddam Hussein hanging over the city's main square and the other soldiers applauded.

[2][3] By 4 March, the forces loyal to Saddam Hussein had managed to gain the upper hand in the battle, and began a brutal counter-offensive characterised by the arbitrary killing of civilians, with government tanks reportedly firing at buildings and civilians and Republican Guardsmen engaging in massacres against the civilian population.