A report on Iran–Iraq War and Halabja massacre

The Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas, supported by Iran, captured Halabja in the final phase of the Iran–Iraq War.

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

The Iraqi forces were led by Ali Hassan al-Majid, on the orders of President Saddam Hussein, against Iraqi Kurdistan in northern Iraq during the final stages of the Iran–Iraq War.

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.

He suppressed several movements, particularly Shi'a and Kurdish movements which sought to overthrow the government or gain independence, respectively, and maintained power during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War.

(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.

During Iran–Iraq War, Tehran has provided support for Iraqi-based Kurdish groups like KDP or PUK, along with asylum for 1.4 million Iraqi refugees, mostly Kurds.

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.

As a chemical weapon, mustard gas was first used in World War I, and has been used in several armed conflicts since then, including the Iran–Iraq War, resulting in more than 100,000 casualties.

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

The Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988 was a 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.

American support for Ba'athist Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War, in which it fought against post-revolutionary Iran, included several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, the sale of dual-use technology, military intelligence, and special operations training.

Hiltermann says that when the Iraqi military turned its chemical weapons on the Kurds during the war, killing approximately 5,000 people in the town of Halabja and injuring thousands more, the Reagan administration sought to obscure Iraqi leadership culpability by suggesting, inaccurately, that the Iranians were partially responsible for the attack.

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.

April 1988: Sarin was used four times against Iranian soldiers at the end of the Iran–Iraq War, helping Iraqi forces to retake control of the al-Faw Peninsula during the Second Battle of al-Faw.

Both gases were used during the Iran–Iraq War, between 1980 and 1988, as well as during the Halabja poison gas attack the military carried out on Iraqi Kurds, in 1988, which killed about 5,000 people.

Operation Zafar 7 was an Iranian offensive during the Iran–Iraq War.

The Halabja poison gas attack occurred in the period 15–19 March 1988 during the Iran–Iraq War when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja (population 80,000).