 On March 1, 1991, one day after the Gulf War ceasefire, a T-72 tank gunner, returning home after Iraq's defeat in Kuwait, fired a shell into a gigantic portrait of Saddam Hussein hanging over Basra's main square and onlooking soldiers applauded.The revolt in Basra was led at first by Muhammad Ibrahim Wali, an army officer who gathered a force of military vehicles to attack the government buildings and prisons in the city; he was backed by a majority of the population.The uprising in Basra was entirely spontaneous and disorganised.