A report on Halabja massacre

A First Lieutenant of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division patrolling a local cemetery for some 1,500 victims in February 2005
Ali Hassan al-Majid "Chemical Ali" during an investigative hearing in 2004
An original bomb casing used as flower pot at the Halabja Memorial Monument in 2011

Massacre of Kurdish people that took place on 16 March 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in Halabja, Iraq.

- Halabja massacre
A First Lieutenant of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division patrolling a local cemetery for some 1,500 victims in February 2005

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Top-left to bottom-right: Iranian child soldier on the frontlines

Iranian soldier in a trench wearing a gas mask to guard against Iraqi chemical attacks

Port quarter view of the USS Stark listing to port after being mistakenly struck by an Iraqi warplane

Pro-Iraq MEK forces killed during Iran's Operation Mersad

Iraqi prisoners of war after the recapture of Khorramshahr by Iranian forces

ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun being used by the Iranian Army

Iran–Iraq War

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Protracted armed conflict that began on 22 September 1980 with a full-scale invasion of Iran by neighbouring Iraq.

Protracted armed conflict that began on 22 September 1980 with a full-scale invasion of Iran by neighbouring Iraq.

Top-left to bottom-right: Iranian child soldier on the frontlines

Iranian soldier in a trench wearing a gas mask to guard against Iraqi chemical attacks

Port quarter view of the USS Stark listing to port after being mistakenly struck by an Iraqi warplane

Pro-Iraq MEK forces killed during Iran's Operation Mersad

Iraqi prisoners of war after the recapture of Khorramshahr by Iranian forces

ZU-23-2 anti-aircraft gun being used by the Iranian Army
Meeting of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Houari Boumédiène and Saddam Hussein (left to right) during the Algiers Agreement in 1975.
Ruhollah Khomeini rose to power after the Iranian Revolution.
Location of Khuzestan Province in Iran which Iraq planned to annex
Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr, who was also commander-in-chief, on a Jeep-mounted 106mm recoilless anti-tank gun. Banisadr was impeached in June 1981.
The Shatt al-Arab on the Iran–Iraq border
Destroyed Iranian C-47 Skytrain
Iranian F-14A Tomcats equipped with AIM-54A, AIM-7 and AIM-9 missiles.
Resistance of the outnumbered and outgunned Iranians in Khorramshahr slowed the Iraqis for a month.
Iranian president Abulhassan Banisadr on the battlefront
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and Massoud Rajavi, the leader of MEK and the National Resistance Council of Iran (NCRI) in 1988.
The surprise attack on H-3 airbase is considered to be one of the most sophisticated air operations of the war.
Iranian soldier holding an IV bag during the Iran–Iraq War
Iranian Northrop F-5 aircraft during Iran-Iraq war
Iraqi T-62 tank wreckage in Khuzestan Province, Iran
Iraqi soldiers surrendering after the Liberation of Khorramshahr
Saddam Hussein in 1982
An admonitory declaration issued from the Iraqi government in order to warn Iranian troops in the Iran–Iraq War. The statement says: "Hey Iranians! No one has been downtrodden in the country where Ali ibn Abi Ṭālib, Husayn ibn Ali and Abbas ibn Ali are buried. Iraq has undoubtedly been an honorable country. All refugees are precious. Anyone who wants to live in exile can choose Iraq freely. We, the Sons of Iraq, have been ambushing foreign aggressors. The enemies who plan to assault Iraq will be disfavoured by God in this world and the hereafter. Be careful of attacking Iraq and Ali ibn Abi Ṭālib! If you surrender, you might be in peace."
95,000 Iranian child soldiers were made casualties during the Iran–Iraq War, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, with a few younger.
Furthest ground gains
Iranian POWs in 1983 near Tikrit, Iraq
Iranian child soldier
Iraqi POW who was shot by Iranian troops after they conquered the Iraqi Majnoon oil field in October 1984
Iranian troops fire 152 mm D-20 howitzer
Battle of the Marshes Iran front 1983 rest after exchange of fire 152 mm D-20 H
Operation Earnest Will: Tanker convoy No. 12 under US Navy escort (21 October 1987)
A map indicating the attacks on civilian areas of Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait targeted during the "War of the Cities".
Iraqi commanders discussing strategy on the battlefront (1986)
Iranian President Ali Khamenei on the battlefront during the Iran–Iraq War
Operation Dawn 8 during which Iran captured the Faw Peninsula.
Iranian soldier killed during the Iran–Iraq War with Rouhollah Khomeini's photo on his uniform
The People's Mujahedin of Iran, supported by Saddam, started a ten-day operation after both the Iranian and Iraqi governments accepted UN Resolution 598. Casualty estimates range from 2,000 to 10,000.
Adnan Khairallah, Iraqi Defense Minister, meeting with Iraqi soldiers during the war
IRGC navy speedboats using swarm tactics
An Iranian soldier wearing a gas mask during the Iran–Iraq War.
The Iranian frigate IS Sahand burns after being hit by 20 U.S. air launched missiles and bombs, killing a third of the crew, April 1988
Iranian soldiers captured during Iraq's 1988 offensives
USS Vincennes in 1987 a year before it shot down Iran Air Flight 655
MEK Soldiers killed in Operation Mersad in 1988
Al-Shaheed Monument in Baghdad was erected to commemorate the fallen Iraqi soldiers during the war.
Iranian Martyr Cemetery in Isfahan
Iranian Martyrs Museum in Tehran
An Iranian soldier's funeral in Mashhad, 2013
An Iraqi Mil Mi-24 on display at the military museum of Sa'dabad Palace in Iran
President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush work in the Oval Office of the White House, 20 July 1984.
USS Stark (FFG-31) listing following two hits by Exocet missiles.
Victims of the 1987 chemical attack on Sardasht, West Azerbaijan, Iran
Damage to a mosque in Khoramshahr, Iran, the city that was invaded by Iraq in September 1980

While little known outside of Iran (unlike the later Halabja massacre), the Sardasht bombing (and future similar attacks) had a tremendous effect on the Iranian people's psyche.

Halabja

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City in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about 150 mi northeast of Baghdad and 9 mi from the Iranian border.

City in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about 150 mi northeast of Baghdad and 9 mi from the Iranian border.

At 11:00 AM, On March 16, 1988, after two days of conventional artillery attacks, Iraqi planes dropped gas canisters on the town.

Footwear of a child found in an Anfal mass grave

Anfal campaign

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Counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq in the late 1980s.

Counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq in the late 1980s.

Footwear of a child found in an Anfal mass grave
Monument at the mass grave of victims of the Halabja chemical attack
Rizgary, former Sumud relocation camp for Anfal survivors (photographed 2011)
Memorial to Anfal victims at the Amna Suraka museum in Sulaimaniyya

This led to the poison gas attack on Halabja on 16 March 1988, during which 3,200–5,000 Kurdish people were killed, most of them civilians.

Flag of Kurdistan

Kurds

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Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.

Iranian ethnic group native to the mountainous region of Kurdistan in Western Asia, which spans southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northern Syria.

Flag of Kurdistan
Kurdish-inhabited areas in the Middle East (1992)
Yazidi new year celebrations in Lalish, 18 April 2017
Faravahar (or Ferohar), one of the primary symbols of Zoroastrianism, believed to be the depiction of a Fravashi (guardian spirit)
Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, or Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty in the Middle East
Kurdish Warriors by Frank Feller
Karim Khan, the Laki ruler of the Zand Dynasty
Impression of a Kurdish man by American artist Antonio Zeno Shindle circa 1893
Provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres for an independent Kurdistan (in 1920)
Kurdish-inhabited areas of the Middle East and the Soviet Union in 1986, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Two Kurds From Constantinople 1899
Kurdish boys in Diyarbakir
Leyla Zana
Iranian Kurds celebrating Newroz, 20 March 2018
Qazi Muhammad, the President of the Republic of Kurdistan
The President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, meeting with U.S. officials in Baghdad, Iraq, on 26 April 2006
Kurdish girls in traditional Kurdish costume, Newroz picnic in Kirkuk
Pro-independence rally in Erbil in September 2017
Kurdish YPG and YPJ fighters in Syria
Tunar Rahmanoghly singing Kurdish song "Rinda Min". Khari Bulbul Music Festival
Protest in Berlin, Germany against Turkey's military offensive into north-eastern Syria on 10 October 2019
Hamdi Ulukaya, Kurdish-American billionaire, founder and CEO of Chobani
YPG's female fighters in Syria
The fox, a widely recurring character in Kurdish tales
Modern rug from Bijar
A Kurdish nobleman bearing a jambiya dagger
Kurdish woman with deq tattoo
Kurdish musicians, 1890
Bahman Ghobadi at the presentation of his film Nobody Knows About Persian Cats in San Sebastián, 2009
Eren Derdiyok, a Kurdish footballer, striker for the Swiss national football team
The Marwanid Dicle Bridge, Diyarbakir
The Citadel of Erbil
Mercier. Kurde (Asie) by Auguste Wahlen, 1843
Kurdish warriors by Amadeo Preziosi
Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish females in their traditional clothes, 1873
Zakho Kurds by Albert Kahn, 1910s
Kurdish Cavalry in the passes of the Caucasus mountains (The New York Times, January 24, 1915)
A Kurdish woman from Kirkuk, 1922
A Kurdish chief
A Kurdish woman from Piranshahr, Iran, Antoin Sevruguin
A Kurdish woman and a child from Bisaran, Eastern Kurdistan, 2017
A group of Kurdish men with traditional clothing, Hawraman
A Kurdish man wearing traditional clothes, Erbil
A Kurdish woman fighter from Rojava

The campaign included the use of ground offensives, aerial bombing, systematic destruction of settlements, mass deportation, firing squads, and chemical attacks, including the most infamous attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 that killed 5000 civilians instantly.

Saddam in August 1998, preparing to deliver a speech for the 10th anniversary of the end of the Iran–Iraq War

Saddam Hussein

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Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.

Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003.

Saddam in August 1998, preparing to deliver a speech for the 10th anniversary of the end of the Iran–Iraq War
Saddam in August 1998, preparing to deliver a speech for the 10th anniversary of the end of the Iran–Iraq War
Saddam in his youth as a shepherd in his village, near Tikrit
Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959–1963
Promoting women's literacy and education in the 1970s
Saddam in 1974
Saddam talking to Michel Aflaq, the founder of Ba'athist thought, in 1988
Alexei Kosygin (left) and Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr signing the Iraqi–Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Co-Operation in 1972
Propaganda art to glorify Saddam after Iran–Iraq War, 1988.
Saddam Hussein and al-Bakr, de jure president of Iraq alongside Hafez al-Assad of Syria at an Arab Summit in Baghdad in November 1978
Saddam greeting Carlos Cardoen, a Chilean businessman who provided Iraq with weapons during the war in the 1980s
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie meets Saddam for an emergency meeting
Iraqi stamp about the Arab Cooperation Council (ACC), founded 1989 by Saleh of (North) Yemen, king Hussein of Jordan, Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt
Saddam in duty uniform
Saddam addresses state television, in January 2001
Saddam Hussein in 1996
Statue of Saddam being toppled in Firdos Square after the invasion
Saddam is discovered and interrogated by American soldiers, December 2003
Saddam Hussein shortly after capture
Hussein after being captured and shaven to confirm his identity
Saddam speaks in court
Saddam Hussein's family, mid-late 1980s
Saddam Hussein's sons Qusay and Uday were killed in a gun battle in Mosul on 22 July 2003.

(see Halabja massacre) The attack occurred in conjunction with the 1988 al-Anfal Campaign designed to reassert central control of the mostly Kurdish population of areas of northern Iraq and defeat the Kurdish peshmerga rebel forces.

Kaveh Golestan

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Iranian photojournalist and artist.

Iranian photojournalist and artist.

Golestān and his sister Lili

In 1988 he took the first pictures of the aftermath of the Halabja chemical attack during the Iran–Iraq War.

Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988

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United States Senate bill to punish Iraq for chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds at Halabja during the Iran–Iraq War.

United States Senate bill to punish Iraq for chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds at Halabja during the Iran–Iraq War.

In the Halabja poison gas attack of March 16–March 17, 1988, Iraqi government forces used chemical weapons against the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja - killing 3,200-5,000, most of them civilians.

Sarin (red), acetylcholinesterase (yellow), acetylcholine (blue)

Sarin

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Extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.

Extremely toxic synthetic organophosphorus compound.

Sarin (red), acetylcholinesterase (yellow), acetylcholine (blue)
frameless
Rabbit used to check for leaks at former sarin production plant (Rocky Mountain Arsenal), 1970
U.S. Honest John missile warhead cutaway, showing M134 Sarin bomblets (c. 1960)

March 1988: Halabja chemical attack; Over two days in March, the ethnic Kurdish city of Halabja in northern Iraq (population 70,000) was bombarded by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Air Force jets with chemical bombs including sarin. An estimated 5,000 people died, almost all civilians.

Pallets of 155 mm artillery shells containing "HD" (distilled mustard gas agent) at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. The distinctive color-coding scheme on each shell is visible

Mustard gas

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Chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents.

Chemical compound belonging to a family of cytotoxic and blister agents known as mustard agents.

Pallets of 155 mm artillery shells containing "HD" (distilled mustard gas agent) at the Pueblo Chemical Depot. The distinctive color-coding scheme on each shell is visible
US Army World War II gas identification poster, c. 1941–1945
Mustard gas test subjects enter gas chamber, Edgewood Arsenal, March 1945
Arms of four test subjects after exposure to nitrogen mustard and lewisite agents.

Iraq against Kurds in the town of Halabja during the Halabja chemical attack

Iraqi Ground Forces' insignia

Iraqi Ground Forces

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Ground force component of the Iraqi Armed Forces.

Ground force component of the Iraqi Armed Forces.

Iraqi Ground Forces' insignia
Iraqi soldiers in Qaradagh Mountain, western Iran.
Iraqi made Al Kafil-1 Battle Tank
Mountain gun of the Iraqi Army column, 'Dicol', shelling Shirwan-A-Mazin from a hillside at Kani-Ling during the anti-Barzani operations, June 1932.
Three Iraqi Levies ground crews of the RAF, arrive at the docks at Liverpool, UK, 1946. Left to right: Sergeant Macko Shmos, Lance Corporal Adoniyo Odisho and Corporal Yoseph Odisho.
Iraqi army troops led by Taher Abdel Ghafour and with a Humber Armoured Car in the city of Jenin, 1948.
Arab offensive, 15 May – 10 June 1948.
A group of Iraqi soldiers, 1958.
Iraqi Army Panhard AML-60 armored car, 1970s. Iraq ordered about 250 of these vehicles between 1968 and 1976.
Iraqi commanders discussing strategy on the battlefront, 1986. Wafiq Al-Samarrai is center-left.
Iraqi Army EE-9 Cascavel armored car destroyed while buried in the sand north of Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm.
Demolished Iraqi vehicles line the Highway of Death on 18 April 1991.
Abandoned Iraqi Army T-72 tanks, 2003.
Modified T-55 tank of the 5th Mechanized Division which saw action in the Battle of Khafji
Iraqi Asad Babil tanks and an M113 APC from the Iraqi Army 9th Mechanized Division pass through a highway checkpoint in Mushahada, Iraq.
Iraqi commandos training under the supervision of soldiers of the US 82nd Airborne.
Iraqi army battalion trains for urban operations
Iraqi special forces wearing masks and armed with M4A1 carbines, March 2020.
Iraqi Special Operations Forces (ISOF) training April 2011
An Iraqi Army T-72 tank performs a live-fire training exercise at the Besmaya Gunnery Range, in Besmaya, Baghdad, 28 October 2008.
The 2nd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Division took delivery of 10 armored HMMWVs
A convoy of 1st Motor Transport Regiment, 1st Iraqi Army Division KrAZ-6322

The conflict is often compared to World War I, in that the tactics used closely mirrored those of the 1914–1918 war, including large scale trench warfare, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, use of barbed wire across trenches and on no-mans land, human wave attacks by Iran, and Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons (such as mustard gas) against Iranian troops and civilians as well as Iraqi Kurds.