Al Jahra
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Al Jahra جهراء |
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 Al Jahra
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| Coordinates: 29°21′N 47°41′E / 29.350°N 47.683°E | |
| Country | Kuwait |
| Governorate | Al Jahra Governorate |
| Districts | Al Jahra District |
| Population (2014) | |
| • Total | 393,432 |
| Time zone | AST (UTC+3) |
Al Jahra (Arabic: جهراء) is a town located 32 kilometres (20 mi) west of Kuwait City in Kuwait. Al Jahra is the capital of the Al Jahra Governorate of Kuwait as well as the surrounding Al Jahra District which is agriculturally based. Encyclopædia Britannica recorded the population in 1980 as 67,311.
Al Jahra was once dominated by agricultural land and began as a small oasis village. Historically it became known as a notable trading point for camels and a stopping place on the way to Kuwait City. It gradually grew into a town along the historic Kuwait Red Fort. Al Jahra was the site of the Battle of Jahra in 1920, a conflict between Kuwaiti and Saudi forces. Today, there is a national monument commemorating the battle. The conflict was settled in 1922 when King Abdul Aziz al-Saud recognized the independence of Kuwait in exchange for territory.
During the Gulf War, the outskirts of Al Jahra was also the site of an infamous shootout with the Allied destruction of a stalled Iraqi convoy as it retreated up Mutla Ridge on Highway 80 between February 25 and 26, 1991. The US Army received orders by General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. to not let anybody in or out of Kuwait City and to effectively blockade the retreating Iraqi convoys within a 100-mile radius. He ordered the dispatching of Apache helicopters armed with anti-tank missiles to block the Iraqis. Schwarzkopf commented in 1995 on the military action:
A number of damaging fires have been known to have occurred in recent times in Al Jahra. On 25 August 2007, politician Massouma al-Mubarak was forced to resign from her post as health minister following a fire in a hospital which killed two patients.
Then on August 15, 2009 a fire broke out at a wedding in Al Jahra. At least 49 people were killed and about 80 others wounded when the grooms' 23-year-old first wife, sought revenge for her husband's second marriage, poured petrol on a tent where women and children were celebrating and set it on fire. Within three minutes the whole tent, which had only one exit and did not meet fire safety regulations, was engulfed in flames, trapping many inside. It was the deadliest civilian disaster in Kuwait in the last 40 years.
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