The al-Hijarah missile was an Iraqi liquid propelled inertial Short-range ballistic missile, it was also a Scud missile and considered an upgrade of the al-Hussein missile equipped with chemical warheads.^[1] It was developed by 1990^[2] and was first used in the Persian Gulf War where the al-Hijarah missile would release poison gas clouds and kill personnel on the ground, as well as ignite oil wells.^[1] One al-Hijarah missile was confirmed to have been fired at Israel during the Gulf War where one landed near Dimona, it was revealed that the missile had a concrete filled warhead.^[1]

The al-Hijarah missile warhead was probably filled with chemical weapons and biological weapons possessed by Iraq at that time like anthrax, botulinum toxin, aflatoxin, sarin, cyclosarin and VX nerve agent.^{[citation needed]} The al-Hijarah missile being a version of the al Hussein also suffered from flight instability and improper guidance.^[3] Iraq itself at that time was almost fully indigenous when it came to ballistic missile components and only lacked the ability to locally manufacture Gyroscopes.^[1]