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A political and geographical map showing countries commonly considered part of the Middle East.

During the 20th and 21st centuries, there have been a number of conflicts in the Middle East.

• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• 1956 Suez War
• 1967 Six Day War
• 1970 War of Attrition
• 1973 Yom Kippur War
• 1982 Lebanon War
• First Intifada
• 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict
• al-Aqsa Intifada
• 2006 Lebanon War

As part of the broader tensions between monarchical, pro-Western governments and Nasserite, socialist governments, the Syrian governments of the sixties were opposed to the Jordanian monarchy; in 1960, the assassination of the Jordanian prime minister Hazza al-Majali was blamed on Syria (at the time, the United Arab Republic.) Tensions increased further after King Hussein ended official support for the PLO in 1966; in September 1970, a Syrian military unit crossed into Jordan to aid the PLO against the Jordanian army (see Black September in Jordan). The Syrian force was repulsed, but relations remained tense and were severed in July 1971. In 1975, Jordan and Syria attempted to put aside past hostilities between them and create a new alliance. In 1979, King Hussein of Jordan proposed an alternative to the Camp David accords to which Hafez al-Assad of Syria strongly objected; this marked the beginning of a rapid deterioration in Jordanian-Syrian relations. In 1979 Syria accused the Kingdom of Jordan of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood's attacks against Assad's government. Since then the tensions have dissipated and now relations between the two countries are normal.

PLO-Jordanian government war in September 1970. PLO militia attempt to overthrow current Hashemite government through armed force. Conflict results in heavy Palestinian casualties and ban on Palestinians joining Jordanian army.

(1975–1990) Because of religious and ethnic tensions, the country became socially unstable. Interference from the outside, mainly Western, exacerbated the situation and caused a civil war. The civil war spanned over two decades and grabbed the attention of the world through abductions of Westerners. Ultimately the United Nations decided to intervene. By trial and error the situation ultimatleey got under control, but tensions still rest in the Lebanese society, and although the war ended, the risk of civil war is still present.

Following Egypt's first negotiations with Israel in 1973, Libya became hostile to Egypt. In 1977, not long after demonstrators in the two countries attacked each other's consulates, the two countries fought a four-day war (July 21-July 24) during which several Libyan aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The war ended with a peace treaty signed with Egypt and Libya to unite in a war effort against Arab Extremists.

Kuwait and Iraq had a serious territorial dispute that led to armed warfare in 1973 and again in 1976. Iraq wanted Kuwait's oil and ports, and argued that Kuwait was rightfully theirs due to pre-British imperial boundaries. In 1990 Iraq occupied Kuwait, but was expelled in 1991.

• April 1967 Iraq-Kuwait conflict in Al-Ratqa, Kuwait
• March 1973 Iraq-Kuwait conflict in Al-Sameta, Kuwait
• 1976 Iraq-Kuwait conflict in Al-Sameta, Kuwait
• 1990-1991 The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq (Gulf War)

Sometimes called the First Persian Gulf War. In this war Syria entered on the side of Iran, against Iraq, with aid and supplies. All other Arab countries except for Libya, the United States and Western World, as well as the USSR and Warschau pact supported Iraq, imposing embargoes on Iran. The war ended after 8 years, when after Iraq, Iran accepted a resolution of the UN asking for the halt of military activities. The frontiers were re-established to those before the war.

• 1990-1991 Gulf War

During the Gulf War, a United Nations force led by the United States restored Kuwaiti sovereignty after the 1990 Iraqi invasion.

Between the 1991 and 2003 wars, the US, UK, and (until 1996) France continued to enforce no-fly zones over large areas of Iraq, to protect Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis from air attack by the Iraqi government. Many people of Iraq and other countries considered this to be a continuous invasion of Iraqi airspace, and thus, one war from 1991-2003. The United Nations ran a maritime blockade Iraq's Persian Gulf oil ports between the two wars, to enforce sanctions in response to Iraq's refusal to comply fully with UN inspections, to verify that it no longer had weapons of mass destruction. Some of the engagements included:

• Operation Desert Strike
• Operation Desert Fox

• 2003-present Iraq War

In 2003, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded and occupied Iraq after a dispute over the status of the Iraqi Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons programs. This war is sometimes known as the Second Gulf War.

Main article: 2007 Lebanon conflict

In May 2007, a skirmish between Fatah al-Islam, an Islamist group, and the Lebanese Army evolved into a three-month siege of the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr al-Bared in which some 250 people died.

• List of conflicts in the Maghreb
• List of conflicts in the Horn of Africa