42                                    U.S. MARINES IN THE PERSIAN GULF, 1990-1991


degree. The Iraqi air force remained grounded, leaving the ground attacks to
go in without benefit of air cover. The unsupported assaults never put the
Marines under enough pressure to force the division to reveal the tactical
deployment of its units. Though the offensive came at a time when Marine units
were still about 40 miles to the south, mobile defense was something Task Force
Shepherd and the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing had practiced since October.
    General Boomer, General Myatt, and General Keys saw the attack as a
positive event. What the Marines got out of the attack influenced the planning
for the allied offensive. They found the Iraqi soldiers unmotivated, poorly
trained, and ill led. From this knowledge, there arose a feeling that Iraqi de-
fenses were not as formidable as originally believed. In order to refine the
division's offensive plan, therefi~re, General Myatt redoubled his efforts to get
detailed photographs of the obstacle belts in his sector. The attack also showed
American commanders there was a gap in air surveillance of the battlefield
sufficient to allow a sizable armored force to move to the border without being
detected. The gap was immediately closed.67 One other result of the OP 4
fratricide incidents was CentCom's decision to mark all allied vehicles with
inverted "V,, symbols, V17 orange panels, chemical lights, and non-powered
thermal tape. Those items would be a feature of allied markings for the remain-
der of the war.
    Of more immediate importance was the information received from a prisoner
captured by Company C, Task Force Shepherd. He told Marine interrogators
that at 1700 on the evening of 29 January an Iraqi armored division would move
from the vicinity of Al Qurayn to attack the Saudi coastal town of Khafji. The
attack was scheduled to commence at 0200 on 30 January. Khafji, however,
was in the Saudi Army sector and was defended by the 2d Brigade, Saudi
Arabian National Guard, a mechanized infantry unit. The only Marines in the
Saudi sector were liaison officers attached to the brigade, training advisors from
Task Force Taro, and reconnaissance teams from the 3d Platoon, Company A,
3d Reconnaissance Battalion (attached to 1st Reconnaissance Battalion) and 1st
SR!G positioned inside Khafji.69  Three Iraqi brigades made the assault but air
attacks seriously damaged two brigades before they got to the border. However,
what remained was sufficient to capture the city.

       T/ie Digagernent at Khafii, 30 Januaty - 1 Februaiy 1991

    At about the same moment that Captain Pollard reported the sighting of the
armored unit moving towards OP 4, a Pioneer remote piloted vehicle (RPV)
operated by the 1st Remote Pijoted Vehicle Company (1st RPV Company) flew
over a large Iraqi force moving south along the coastal road. The RPV located
the enemy force about 3 kilometers north of the border. First estimated at S to
10 armored vehicles, a ftirther search discovered elements of a mechanized
brigade and indicated that it was organizing for an attack on the empty town of
Khaf]i. The city had been evacuated soon after the air offensive began and was