Halabja Chemical Attack

The Halabja massacre ( ) took place in Iraqi Kurdistan on 16 March 1988, when thousands of Kurds were killed by a large-scale Iraqi chemical attack. A targeted attack in Halabja, it was carried out during the Anfal campaign, which was led by Iraqi military officer Ali Hassan al-Majid. Two days before the attack, the city had been captured by Iran as part of Operation Zafar 7 of the Iran–Iraq War. Following the incident, the United Nations launched an investigation and concluded that mustard gas as well as unidentified nerve agents had been used against Kurdish civilians. The United States Defense Intelligence Agency initially blamed Iran for the attack, though the majority of evidence later revealed that Iraq had used the chemical weapons to bolster an ongoing military offensive against Iran, pro-Iranian Kurdish fighters, and ordinary Halabja residents.

To date, the Halabja massacre remains the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated region in human history, killing between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injuring 7,000 to 10,000 more. Preliminary results from surveys of the affected areas showed increased rates of cancer and birth defects in the years since the attack took place.

In 2010, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal officially defined the Halabja chemical attack as a genocidal massacre against the Kurdish people during the time of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. That same year, it was also formally condemned by the Parliament of Canada, which classified it as a crime against humanity. Al-Majid, who was captured during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, was put on trial and found guilty of ordering the attack; he was sentenced to death in June 2007 and executed by hanging in January 2010.

Background

Northern Iraq was an area of general unrest during the early stage of the Iran–Iraq War, with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) militias joining forces, with Iranian support, in 1982 and 1983, respectively. From 1985, the Iraqi Ba'athist government under Saddam Hussein decided to eradicate pockets of Kurdish insurgents in the north and strike down the peshmerga rebels by all means possible, including large-scale punishment of civilians and the use of chemical weapons. The Halabja event was also part of Iraqi efforts to counter-attack Kurdish and Iranian forces in the final stages of Operation Zafar 7.

Chemical attack

The five-hour attack began in the evening of 16 March 1988, following a series of indiscriminate conventional (rocket and napalm) attacks. Iraqi Mig and Mirage aircraft began dropping chemical bombs on Halabja's residential areas, far from the besieged Iraqi army base on the outskirts of the town. According to regional Kurdish rebel commanders, Iraqi aircraft, coordinated by helicopters, conducted up to 14 bombings in sorties of seven to eight planes each. Eyewitnesses told of clouds of white, black and then yellow smoke billowing upward and rising as a column about in the air.

It was a beautiful spring day. As the clock approached 11:00 in the morning, I felt a strange sensation; my heart convulsed as if it were telling me that we were on the verge of a major calamity. Within minutes, artillery rounds began to explode in Halabja and planes began dropping bombs on the town. The bombing was concentrated on the northern neighborhoods, so we ran and hid in our basement. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, as the intensity of the bombing wound down, I carefully sneaked out of the basement to the kitchen and carried food to my family. When the bombing stopped, we began to hear noises that sounded like metal pieces falling on the ground. But I didn’t find an explanation.

I saw things that I won't forget for as long as I live. It started with a loud strange noise that sounded like bombs exploding, and a man came running into our house, shouting, 'Gas! Gas!' We hurried into our car and closed its windows. I think the car was rolling over the bodies of innocent people. I saw people lying on the ground, vomiting a green-colored liquid, while others became hysterical and began laughing loudly before falling motionless onto the ground. Later, I smelled an aroma that reminded me of apples and I lost consciousness. When I awoke, there were hundreds of bodies scattered around me. After that I took shelter again in a nearby basement and the area was engulfed by an ugly smell. It was similar to rotting garbage, but then it changed to a sweet smell similar to that of apples. Then I smelled something that was like eggs.

When you hear people shouting the words 'gas' or 'chemicals'—and you hear those shouts spreading among the people—that is when terror begins to take hold, especially among the children and the women. Your loved ones, your friends, you see them walking and then falling like leaves to the ground. It is a situation that cannot be described—birds began falling from their nests; then other animals, then humans. It was total annihilation. Whoever was able to walk out of the town, left on foot. Whoever had a car, left by car. But whoever had too many children to carry on their shoulders, they stayed in the town and succumbed to the gas.

Survivors said the gas at first smelled of sweet apples and reported that people "died in a number of ways, suggesting a combination of toxic chemicals." Citing an interview with a university student who survived the attack, the international NGO, Human Rights Watch, reported that "some ictims'just dropped dead'. Others 'died of laughing.' Others took a few minutes to die, first 'burning and blistering' or 'coughing up green vomit'". "Those who were in the thick of the 'death cloud' died in suspended animation" according to Dlawer Ala'Aldeen of Nottingham University, who collected detailed data between 1987 and 1988, including numbers, places and types of chemical weapon attacks across Iraqi Kurdistan. Many were injured or perished in the panic that followed the attack, especially those who were blinded by the chemicals.

"Iranian physicians reported that victims of the chemical attacks on Halabja showed characteristic symptoms of cyanide poisoning," while other reports indicated substantial quantities of mustard gas and other chemical weapons were used.Eric Croddy with Clarisa Perez-Armendariz & John Hart, ''Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Comprehensive Survey for the Concerned Citizen'' (Spring Science+Business Media, 2002), p. 164. Most of the wounded taken to hospitals in the Iranian capital Tehran were suffering from mustard gas exposure. A United Nations (UN) medical investigation concluded that mustard gas was used in the attack, along with unidentified nerve agents; the UN's investigator was "unable to obtain any definitive information about the eporteduse of hydrocyanic gas as an aggressive chemical." It is generally accepted that "a lethal cocktail of mustard gas and the nerve agents Tabun, Sarin