Halabja poison gas attack
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Halabja poison gas attack
Part of Iran-Iraq War Operation Zafar 7
Aftermath of the Halabja chemical attack
Date
March 16 - March 17, 1988
The Halabja poison gas attack (Kurdish: Kîmyabarana Helebce) was a genocide massacre that took place on March 16, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran-Iraq War, when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces in the Kurdish town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack quickly killed thousands of people (around 5,000 dead) and injured around 11,000, most of them civilians;[1][2] thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack.[3] The incident, which has been officially defined as an act of genocide against the Kurdish people in Iraq,[4] is the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history.[5]
The Halabja genocide has been recognized as a separate event from the Anfal Genocide that was also conducted against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein.[6] The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as genocide on March 1, 2010, which decision was welcomed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. [7]
Background
Main articles: Al-Anfal Campaign and Operation Zafar 7
It was an event that is historically separate from the Operation Anfal (the 1986-1989 campaign conducted by Saddam Hussein's regime's in order to terrorize the Kurdish rural population and end the peshmerga rebellions by brutal means), as the Iranian troops allied to the rebels were also involved in the Halabja events. Nevertheless, the victims of the tragedy are often included in accounting the deaths attributable to the Anfal campaign, which was characterised by the widespread and indiscriminate use of chemical weapons by Iraq.[8]
Chemical attack
The five-hour attack began early in the evening of March 16, 1988, following a series of indiscriminate conventional (rocket and napalm) attacks, when 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 conducted up to 14 bombing sorties of seven to eight planes each; helicopters coordinating the operation were also seen. Eyewitnesses have told of clouds of smoke billowing upward "white, black and then yellow"', rising as a column about 150 feet (46 meters) in the air.[1] Survivors said the gas at first scented with the smell of sweet apples;[9] they said people died in a number of ways, suggesting a combination of toxic chemicals (some of the victims "just dropped dead" while others "died of laughing"; while still others took a few minutes to die, first "burning and blistering" or coughing up green vomit).[10] It is believed that Iraqi forces used multiple chemical agents during the attack, including mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, soman, tabun and VX;[11] some sources have also pointed to the blood agent hydrogen cyanide (most of the wounded taken to hospitals in the Iranian capital Tehran were suffering from mustard gas exposure).[1]
Medical and genetic consequences
Long-term medical effects included permanent blindness, disfigurement, respiratory, digestive, and neurological disorders, leukemia, lymphoma, and colon, breast, lung, skin, and other cancers, increased miscarriages and infertility and severe congenital disorders and other birth defects.[16] Many survivors suffered from mental disorders. Some of those who survived the attack or were apparently injured only lightly at the time, later developed medical problems stemming from the chemicals, and there are increasing fears that the attack may be having a lasting genetic impact on the Kurdish population.[17]
Aftermath
Saddam Hussein's government officially blamed Iran for the attack. The international response at the time was muted and the United States even suggested Iran was responsible.[13] The United States, who, at the time, were allies of Iraq in their war with Iran, said the images could not be verified to be the responsibility of Iraq.
Ali Hasan al-Majid ("Chemical Ali") was condemned to death by hanging by an Iraqi court in January 2010, after being found guilty of orchestrating the Halabja massacre. Majid was first sentenced to hang in 2007 for his role in a 1988 military campaign against ethnic Kurds, codenamed Operation Anfal; in 2008 he also twice received a death sentence for his crimes against the Iraqi Shia Muslims, in particular for his role in crushing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and his involvement in the 1999 killings in the Sadr City (then Saddam City) district of Baghdad. He was executed on January 25, 2010.[23]
International sources for technology and chemical precursors
The know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained by Saddam's regime from foreign firms.[24] The largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and West Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie Ltd.) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[25]
The provision of chemical precursors from United States companies to Iraq was enabled by a Ronald Reagan administration policy that removed Iraq from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. Leaked portions of Iraq's "Full, Final and Complete" disclosure of the sources for its weapons programs shows that thiodiglycol, a substance needed to manufacture mustard gas, was among the chemical precursors provided to Iraq from US companies such as Alcolac International and Phillips. Both companies have since undergone reorganization and Phillips, once a subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum is now part of ConocoPhillips, an American oil and discount fossil fuel company, while Alcolac International has since dissolved and reformed as Alcolac Inc.[26]
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