Therefore, the Ottoman Sultan Mahmoud I issued a royal firman to conduct military campaigns to eliminate the first Saudi state, limit its activity and expansion, and not to be lenient in dealing with it. This was represented by assigning the governor of Baghdad, Suleiman Pasha, to carry out this task. If we take into account the date of the military campaign (1786), we will find that it was at a relatively early period in the beginning of the campaigns directed at targeting the emerging first Saudi state. Suleiman Pasha, in turn, commissioned Thuwaini bin Abdullah Al Shabib, head of Al-Muntafiq, to prepare and lead the military campaign directed against the Saudis, which the historian Ibn Bishr describes by saying: “In Muharram, Thuwaini bin Abdullah bin Muhammad Al Shabib marched with the soldiers, and he had incalculable equipment and armament, so much so that the loads of guns and cannons and their machines amounted to seven hundred loads”.

The Iraqi historian Othman bin Sanad Al-Basri, a contemporary of the events, also confirmed that campaign by saying: “He marched in battalions like mountains and processions in which blades shine”. He headed with those large forces with the intention of attacking the capital of the Saudi state “Diriyah”. He started with Al-Qassim and attacked its towns with his large army, besieging them for days and pounding them with cannons. He did not succeed in entering the smallest of its towns, “Al-Tanuma”, north of Al-Asyah, which showed great resistance and great steadfastness from its people in the face of the campaign. However, nothing but steadfastness helped, ​except that Thuwaini was able to deceive the people of the town with safety, but he did not fulfill his promise with them, so he took control over the town, plundered it and killed all its people except the homeless.

The sources indicate that the number of dead reached about one hundred and seventy men, then the military campaign headed to the city of Buraidah. He fought its people and surrounded it with his soldiers, but he retreated after a dispute occurred in his homeland over the leadership of the tribe, as his cousin turned against him and he was forced to retreat with his army.

Despite the failure of that military campaign, the Ottoman Empire did not despair of re-asking the governor of Baghdad, Suleiman Pasha, to attack the Saudi capital. However, the aforementioned governor began to fabricate many reasons for his inability to conduct a military campaign against the Saudi state. One of those reasons was that his forces could not fight the Saudis in remote desert areas or in unknown land and harsh climatic conditions, and the army included various elements of Arabs and Kurds, and that doing such a thing would have unknown consequences. However, the Ottoman Sultan’s insistence more than once on the governor Suleiman Pasha to prepare a military campaign to fight Al-Diriyah and occupy Al-Ahsa after the Saudis recovered it, made the governor Suleiman Pasha finally respond to the Sultan’s orders. He prepared two campaigns to occupy Al-Ahsa. In 1797, he commissioned Thuwaini bin Abdullah again to prepare a military campaign to confront the Saudis, attack Diriyah, and occupy Al-Ahsa.

Thuwaini carried out the order of Suleiman Pasha and began to mobilize the crowds for the campaign against the Saudis, making Al-Jahra a center for that campaign, and he continued to mobilize his forces there for three months, during which tribes, clans and government soldiers joined him. The campaign moved through land and sea towards Qatif, but the factors of failure were going with it, as there was a great discrepancy in its elements, especially between the tribal leaders. Thuwaini was close to some of them and ignored the others. Therefore, the result was that Thuwaini was betrayed and killed on the battlefield. This assassination was enough to disrupt the campaign. In the end, the campaign failed and had to go back to where it came from.

Military campaigns continued from the side of Iraq at that time, in implementation of Istanbul’s orders. The governor of Baghdad, Suleiman Pasha, received other strict orders from the Ottoman Sultan to march to the Arabian Peninsula to strike and eliminate the Saudis. In 1798, he prepared a large campaign led by his deputy, Ali Al-Kikhia, and supported him with various weapons and equipment. The campaign included various regular military forces in addition to the Kurdish and Arab tribal forces.