Desert Storm raises tensions: The week that was January 17 to 23 1991

AN arson attack on a mosque in Batley, West Yorkshire, prompted Home Secretary Kenneth Baker to warn that Britain would not tolerate attacks on law-abiding British Muslims who might support Saddam Hussein.
(AP Photo/David Longstreath)(AP Photo/David Longstreath)
(AP Photo/David Longstreath)

He added: “The right to hold different views is a fundamental freedom which all of us in Britain enjoy…I was particularly shocked that this mindless attack might perhaps have been made by people who believe, wrongly, that all Muslims in this country are active supporters of Saddam Hussein.”

In the week that the Gulf War Allies – including the US, UK, France, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait – sent out hundreds of planes on bombing raids into Iraq at the start of Operation Desert Storm, hospitals here in the UK braced themselves for an influx of British casualties from the Middle East.

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Doctors, nurses and other health professionals, most of whom had never seen a gunshot wound, were preparing themselves to treat victims of high-velocity rifle fire. Emergency plans were also under way for provision of beds for military personnel.

While top priority in the war was being given to using eye-in-the-sky technology to search out and destroy Iraq’s surviving mobile Scud missile launchers, which were continuing to threaten Israel and threaten wider conflict in the region, here in the UK Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie appealed for national unity.

He contrasted the spirit of solidarity during the Second World War with the present atmosphere in the country. He told a congregation at Canterbury Cathedral: “Today there are some who are sceptical, unsure about the necessity of war. It all seems so far away. Tragedy seems to be watched almost like a spectator sport.

“Yet, however remote it seems, or whatever our doubts might be, human sympathy and understanding always have to be extended.”

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Later in the week British Muslim leaders meeting in Bradford attacked the Allies for their “savage war”, with some commenting that the matter of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait would have been better dealt with by Muslim countries without outside interference.

In domestic news, inflation was reported to have fallen more sharply than expected in December, to an annual rate of 9.3 per cent. Cheaper petrol, down around 12p a gallon, helped to push the rate significantly below November’s level of 9.7 per cent.

The region’s holiday industry could be hard hit by the £1.3bn EuroDisney theme park being built in France, experts warned in a new report by the Yorkshire and Humberside Tourist Board. They feared that high standards of customer service, appeal to children and the massive advertising budget of the American entertainment giant would mean millions of visitors would be drawn away from Britain.

Of the estimated 12 million annual visitors to EuroDisney, east of Paris, many would be Britons and foreign tourists who would usually have been expected to spend short breaks in this region.

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The report said they would be “spoilt” by the high level of service at the theme park, and this would raise their expectations.

Leeds United, the new favourites to win the Rumbelows League Cup, were aiming to increase Elland Road’s reputation as a stadium where visitors feared to tread.

The 4-1 defeat of Aston Villa in the quarter-finals this week was Leeds’s ninth straight win on home turf, a record they hoped to extend by beating either Manchester United or Southampton in the second leg of the semi-final in February.