From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Halabja
(
Kurdish
: Helebce, ???????) is a
city
in
Iraqi Kurdistan
, the capital of the Halabja Governorate. It is 240 kilometres (150 mi) northeast of
Baghdad
.
The city is known for an incident in the final phase of the
Iran-Iraq War
. The Kurdish
peshmerga
guerrillas, supported by
Iran
, took control of the city. On March 16, 1988, after two days of ordinary
artillery
attacks, Iraqi Air Force planes dropped gas canisters on the town.
[3]
[4]
The town and surrounding district were attacked with bombs, artillery fire and
chemical weapons
, the last of which proved most damaging. At least 5,000 people died as an immediate result of the chemical attack. It is estimated that a further 7,000 people were injured or suffered long-term illness.
[5]
Most of the victims of the attack on the town of Halabja were Kurdish civilians.
[6]
The attack is believed to have included the
nerve agents
Tabun
,
Sarin
and
VX
, as well as
mustard gas
. Another possibility, according to the former senior CIA analyst Stephen C. Pelletiere, is that Iraq did not have the nerve agent to use in the attack but did have mustard gas which had been used in the Iran?Iraq War. It is occasionally suggested
[7]
that
cyanide
was also included among these chemical weapons, though this assertion has been cast into doubt, as cyanide is a natural byproduct of impure Tabun.
[8]
The attack on Halabja took place amidst the
Anfal campaign
, in which
Saddam Hussein
powerfully suppressed Kurdish revolts during the Iran?Iraq War.
Before the war ended, Iraqi forces moved in on the ground and completely destroyed the town.
[9]
In March 2010, the Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as
genocide
. This decision was welcomed by the
Kurdistan Regional Government
.
[10]