Anfal campaign

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Al-Anfal Campaign
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Footwear of a child found in an Anfal mass grave

The Anfal campaign[a] was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988 during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted rural Kurds[1] because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate.[2] The Iraqis committed atrocities on the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians.[3]

The Iraqi forces were led by Ali Hassan al-Majid, on the orders of President Saddam Hussein. The campaign's name was taken from the title of the eighth chapter of the Qur'an (al-ʾanfāl).

In 1993,

Kurdish national identity
.

Background

Following the

Haj Omran, the Iraqi government arrested 8,000 Barzani men and executed them. During the battle for Haj Omran, the Iraqi government also used gas weapons for the first time against both Kurdish and Iranian forces.[5]

Name

"Al Anfal", literally meaning the spoils (of war),

better source needed
]

Summary

The Anfal campaign began in February 1988 and continued until August or September and included the use of ground

mass deportation and firing squads. The campaign was headed by Ali Hassan al-Majid who was a cousin of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.[8]

The Iraqi Army was supported by Kurdish collaborators whom the Iraqi government armed, the so-called Jash forces, who led Iraqi troops to Kurdish villages that often did not figure on maps as well as to their hideouts in the mountains. The Jash forces frequently made false promises of amnesty and safe passage.[9] Iraqi state media extensively covered the Anfal campaign using its official name.[8] Approximately 1,200 Kurdish villages were destroyed during the Anfal campaign.[10] To many Iraqis, Anfal was presented as an extension of the ongoing Iran–Iraq War, although its victims were overwhelmingly Kurdish civilians.[8]

Campaign

In March 1987,

secretary-general of the Ba'ath Party's Northern Bureau,[11] which included Iraqi Kurdistan
.

Military operations and chemical attacks

Anfal, officially conducted in 1988, had eight phases (Anfal 1–Anfal 8) altogether, seven of which targeted areas controlled by the

Kurdish Democratic Party-controlled areas in the northwest Iraqi Kurdistan
, were the target of the Final Anfal operation in late August and early September 1988.

Anfal 1

Halabja chemical attack

The first Anfal stage was conducted between 23 February and 18 March 1988. It started with

air strikes in the early hours of 23 February 1988. Then, several hours later, there were attacks at the Jafali Valley headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan near the Iranian border, and the command centers in Sargallu and Bargallu. There was heavy resistance by the Peshmerga. The battles were conducted in a theater around 1,154 square kilometres (445 sq. mi.).[12] The villages of Gwezeela, Chalawi, Haladin and Yakhsamar were attacked with poison gas. During mid March, the PUK, in an alliance with Iranian troops and other Kurdish factions, captured Halabja.[13] This led to the poison gas attack on Halabja on 16 March 1988,[13] during which several thousand Kurdish people were killed, most of them civilians.[14]

Anfal 2

During the second Anfal from 22 March and 2 April 1988, the Qara Dagh region, including Bazian and Darbandikhan, was targeted in the Suleimanya governorate. Again several villages were attacked with poison gas. Villages attacked with poisonous gas were Safaran, Sewsenan, Belekjar, Serko and Meyoo.[citation needed] The attacks began on 22 March after Newruz, surprising the Peshmerga. Although of shorter duration, Peshmerga suffered more severe casualties in this attack than the first Anfal.[12] As a result of the attack, the majority of the population in the Qara Dagh region fled in the direction of Suleimanya. Many fugitives were detained by the Iraqi forces, and the men were separated from the women. The men were not seen again. The women were transported to camps. The population that managed to flee, fled to the Garmia region.[15]

Anfal 3

In the next Anfal campaign from 7 to 20 April 1988, the Garmian region east of Suleimanya was targeted. In this campaign, many women and children disappeared. The only village attacked with chemical weapons was Tazashar. Many were lured to come towards the Iraqi forces due to an amnesty announced through a loudspeaker of a mosque in Qader Karam from 10 to 12 April. The announced amnesty was a trap, and many who surrendered were detained. Some civilians were able to bribe Kurdish collaborators of the Iraqi Army and fled to Laylan or Shorsh.[16] Before the Anfal campaign, the mainly rural Garmian region counted over 600 villages around the towns of Kifri, Kalar and Darbandikhan.[17]

Anfal 4

Anfal 4 took place between 3–8 May 1988 in the valley of the

Faw Peninsula on the 17–18 April 1988 from Iran in the Iran–Iraq War.[18] Major poisonous gas attacks were perpetrated in Askar and Goptapa.[19] Again it was announced an amnesty was issued, which turned out to be false. Many of the ones who surrendered were arrested. Men were separated from the women.[20]

Anfal 5, 6 and 7

In these three consecutive attacks between 15 May and 16 August 1988, the valleys of Rawandiz and Shaqlawa were targeted, and the attacks had different successes. The Anfal 5 failed completely; therefore, two more attacks were necessary to gain Iraqi government control over the valleys. The Peshmerga commander of the region, Kosrat Abdullah, was well prepared for a long siege with stores of ammunition and food. He also reached an agreement with the Kurdish collaborators of the Iraqi Army so that the civilians could flee. Hiran, Balisan, Smaquli, Malakan, Shek Wasan, Ware, Seran and Kaniba were attacked with poisonous gas. After the Anfal 7 attack, the valleys were under the control of the Iraqi government.[20]

Anfal 8

The last Anfal was aimed at the region controlled by the KDP named Badinan and took place from 25 August to 6 September 1988. In this campaign, the villages of Wirmeli, Barkavreh, Bilejane, Glenaska, Zewa Shkan, Tuka and Ikmala were targeted with chemical attacks. After tens of thousands of Kurds fled to Turkey, the Iraqi Army blocked the route to Turkey on 26 August 1988. The population who did not manage to flee was arrested, and the men were separated from the women and children. The men were executed, and the women and children were brought to camps.[21]

Detention camps

Detention camps were established to accommodate thousands of prisoners. Dibs was a detention camp for women and children and located near an army training facility for the Iraqi commando forces.[22] From Dibs, groups of detainees were transferred to Nugra Salman[23] in a depression in the desert about 120 km southwest of Samawah,[24] in the Muthanna Governorate. Nugra Salman held an estimated 5'000 to 8'000 prisoners during the Anfal campaign.[23] Another detention camp was Topzawa near an army base near the highway leading out of Kirkuk.[25]

Arabisation

"

Kurdistani Alliance. Saddam's Ba'athist regime built several public housing facilities in Kirkuk as part of his "Arabisation", shifting poor Arabs from Iraq's southern regions to Kirkuk with the lure of inexpensive housing. Another part of the Arabisation campaign was the census of October 1987. Citizens who failed to turn up for the October 1987 census were no longer recognized as Iraqi citizens. Most of the Kurdish population who learned that a census was taking place did not take part in the census.[11]

Death toll

Precise figures of Anfal victims do not exist due to lack of records.[1] In its 1993 report, Human Rights Watch wrote that the death toll "cannot conceivably be less than 50,000, and it may well be twice that number".[27][1] This figure was based on an earlier survey by the Sulaymaniyah–based Kurdish organization Committee for the Defence of Anfal Victims' Rights.[1] According to HRW, Kurdish leaders met with Iraqi government official Ali Hassan al-Majid in 1991 and mentioned a figure of 182,000 deaths; the latter reportedly replied that "it couldn't have been more than 100,000".[27][1] The 182,000 figure provided by the PUK was based on extrapolation[8] and "has no empirical relation to actual disappearances or killings",[1] though it "has assumed mythical status among Kurds".[28] In 1995, the Committee for the Defence of Anfal Victims' Rights released a report documenting 63,000 disappeared and stating that the entire death toll was lower than 70,000, with almost all these deaths occurring in the area of Anfal III.[1] According to Hiltermann, the figure of 100,000, although considered too low by many Kurds, is probably higher than the actual number of deaths.[1]

Aftermath

In September 1988, the Iraqi government was satisfied with its achievements. The male population between 15 and 50 had either been killed or fled. [

Kurdish: Bewajin-î Enfal).[30]

Trials

Human Rights Watch unsuccessfully attempted to attract support for a lawsuit under the

Department of State's legal bureau that Anfal met the legal criteria for genocide.[4]

Frans van Anraat

In December 2005, a court in

ethnic group. The court has no other conclusion than that these attacks were committed with the intent to destroy the Kurdish population of Iraq".[31]

During another trial involving legal appeal of

Iraqi military during Anfal operations cannot be regarded as constituting a "genocide".[32][33][34] The verdict of the Hague Court of Appeal stated in 9 May 2007 that tons of Iraqi documents collected by US government, based on which the Human Rights Watch produced its reports, were not enough to establish "a sufficient degree of certainty for a finding of fact in respect of genocide can be derived".[34]

Saddam Hussein

Main article: Trial of Saddam Hussein
Rizgary, former Sumud relocation camp for Anfal survivors (photographed 2011)

In an interview broadcast on Iraqi television on 6 September 2005, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish politician of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, said that judges had directly extracted confessions from Saddam Hussein that he had ordered mass killings and other crimes during his regime and that he deserves to die. Two days later, Saddam's lawyer denied that he had confessed.[35]

Anfal trial

In June 2006, the

Dujail massacre.[37]

The Anfal trial recessed on 21 December 2006, and when it resumed on 8 January 2007, the remaining charges against Saddam Hussein were dropped. Six co-defendants continued to stand trial for their roles in the Anfal campaign. On 23 June 2007,

Hussein Rashid Mohammed, were convicted of genocide and related charges and sentenced to death by hanging.[38] Another two co-defendants (Farhan Jubouri and Saber Abdel Aziz al-Douri) were sentenced to life imprisonment, and one (Taher Tawfiq al-Ani) was acquitted on the prosecution's demand.[39]

Al-Majid was charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. He was convicted in June 2007 and was sentenced to death. His appeal for the death sentence was rejected on 4 September 2007. He was sentenced to death for the fourth time on 17 January 2010 and was hanged eight days later, on 25 January 2010.[40] Sultan Hashem Ahmed was not hanged due to opposition of the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who opposed capital punishment.[41]

The Anfal trial was widely criticized for its methodical defects marked by various acts of political meddling from the

Special Tribunal have been widely dubbed as a "show parade" designed to execute Saddam and deemed as illegitimate by numerous lawyers and human rights organizations.[45]

Sources

There have been few publications about the Anfal campaign and as of 2008, the only comprehensive account of it is that which was published by HRW.[46] Human Rights Watch's 1993 report on Anfal was based on Iraqi documents, examination of grave sites, and interviews with Kurdish survivors.[47]

In 1993, the United States government collected 18 tons of Iraqi government documents which were captured by the Peshmerga during the 1991 uprising and airlifted them to the United States.[48] In those files, HRW conducted research on the Anfal campaign in collaboration with United States federal government agencies such as the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Department.[48] The US government provided Arabic translators and CD ROM scanners.[48] HRW accepted the US government role under the condition that personnel involved worked under its direction.[48] The files include documents which were collected by the Kurdish parties PUK and KDP, both parties hold the ultimate ownership of the documents that were airlifted to the US.[48]

Sulaimaniyya

In exchange for access to the National Archives documents, HRW agreed to help the United States government find information about Iraqi atrocities. Joost Hiltermann, HRW's lead researcher on Anfal, referred to these files as "the good stuff…material to smear the enemy with".[49] Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi–American academic and pro-Iraq War advocate,[50] criticized HRW for promising that the records proved genocide. He warned that the records contained neither "smoking guns" nor do they contain records of the "explosive nature" as HRW claimed. Furthermore, he said that certain documents that seemed incriminating could have been planted by Kurdish rebels.[49] After the invasion of Iraq, Makiya said in December 2003 that the Iraqi document archives contained no "smoking gun" to convict Saddam Hussein of war crimes.[51]

After the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003, mass graves were discovered in parts of western Iraq that had been under Ba'athist control.[1]

Legacy

The event has become an important element in the constitution of

Iraqi Arabs reject that any mass killings of Kurds occurred during the Anfal campaign.[4]

On 28 February 2013, the

British House of Commons formally recognized the Anfal as genocide following a campaign which was led by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who is of Kurdish descent.[55]

See also

  • Genocide of Yazidis by the Islamic State

References

  1. Arabic: حملة الأنفال, romanized: Hamlat al-Anfal; Kurdish
    : شاڵاوی ئەنفال, romanized: Kampanyayê Enfalê
  2. ^ Sources on the 2007 Hague court ruling:
    • "Dutch Court Concludes Anfal Campaign Wasn't Genocide". OpinioJuris. 19 June 2007. Archived from the original on 8 October 2009. The appellate court, however, did not simply conclude that van Anraat was unaware of Saddam's genocidal plan. It also held that the Anfal campaign did not amount to genocide. In its written judgment, the appeals panel said there was insufficient evidence to establish that the poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages in 1987 and 1988 amounted to genocide.
    • Gottlieb, Sebastian (10 May 2007). "Van Anraat case 'example'". Radio Netherlands. Archived from the original on 8 September 2007. In contrast to the original court judgement, the Court of Appeal concluded that the events in Northern Iraq weren't genocide.
    • "ECLI:NL:GHSGR:2007:BA4676". de Rechtspraak. 9 May 2007. Archived from the original on 1 July 2013. the court points out that.. there are no documents in the file from which the findings and conclusions of the Special Rapporteur can be directly deduced and from which, in the context of criminal proceedings such as the present one, there are building blocks with a sufficient degree of certainty for a finding of fact in respect of genocide can be derived.
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Hiltermann 2008, Victims.
  2. ^ Kirmanj & Rafaat 2021, p. 163.
  3. ^ Beeston, Richard (18 January 2010). "Halabja, the massacre the West tried to ignore". The Times. Archived from the original on 23 January 2010. Retrieved 28 August 2013.
  4. ^ a b c Hiltermann 2008, Interpretation of facts.
  5. ^ Hiltermann 2008, Context.
  6. ^ a b Montgomery 2001, p. 70.
  7. ISBN 978-0-429-71113-8
    .
  8. ^
    ISBN 9780393311419
    .
  9. ^ Hardi 2011, p. 17.
  10. ISBN 9780415944304
    . In these operations alone, an estimated 1200 Kurdish villages were destroyed.
  11. ^ a b Hardi 2011, pp. 16–17.
  12. ^
    ISBN 978-1-317-09016-8
    – via Google Books.
  13. ^ a b Hardi 2011, p. 19.
  14. ISBN 9780521876865
    . The precise death toll from the Halabja gas attack is unknown but thought to be several thousand. Out of an area population of 70-80,000 and with the reported intensity of the bombardment this was perhaps a remarkably small number.
  15. ^ Hardi 2011, pp. 19–20.
  16. ^ Hardi 2011, p. 20.
  17. Zentrum Moderner Orient
    , Klaus Schwarz Verlag. p. 167.
  18. ^ Black 1993, pp. 171–172.
  19. ^ Black 1993, pp. 172–176.
  20. ^ a b Hardi 2011, p. 21.
  21. ^ Hardi 2011, pp. 21–22.
  22. ^ Black, George, (1993), pp. 222–223
  23. ^
    ISBN 978-1-56432-108-4
    .
  24. ^ Sissakian, Varoujan K. (January 2020). "Origins and Utilizations of the Main Natural Depressions in Iraq". ResearchGate. pp. 23–24.
  25. ^ Black, George, (1993), p.209
  26. ^ Black 1993, p. 36.
  27. ^ a b Black 1993, p. 345.
  28. ISBN 9780521876865
    .
  29. ^ Hardi 2011, p. 22.
  30. ^
    S2CID 145055297 – via JSTOR
    .
  31. ^ a b c "Killing of Iraq Kurds 'genocide'". BBC. 23 December 2005. Retrieved 31 July 2022.
  32. ^ "Dutch Court Concludes Anfal Campaign Wasn't Genocide". OpinioJuris. 19 June 2007. Archived from the original on 8 October 2009. The appellate court, however, did not simply conclude that van Anraat was unaware of Saddam's genocidal plan. It also held that the Anfal campaign did not amount to genocide. In its written judgment, the appeals panel said there was insufficient evidence to establish that the poison gas attacks on Kurdish villages in 1987 and 1988 amounted to genocide.
  33. ^ Gottlieb, Sebastian (10 May 2007). "Van Anraat case 'example'". Radio Netherlands. Archived from the original on 8 September 2007. In contrast to the original court judgement, the Court of Appeal concluded that the events in Northern Iraq weren't genocide.
  34. ^ a b "ECLI:NL:GHSGR:2007:BA4676". de Rechtspraak. 9 May 2007. Archived from the original on 1 July 2013. the court points out that Van der Stoel stated as a witness that he based his highly relevant reports on human rights violations in Iraq, H74 and H75, on "a large stream of documents, fourteen tons" while, with the exception of a few appendices to those reports, there are no documents in the file from which the findings and conclusions of the Special Rapporteur can be directly deduced and from which, in the context of criminal proceedings such as the present one, there are building blocks with a sufficient degree of certainty for a finding of fact in respect of genocide can be derived.
  35. ^ Lawyer denies Saddam confession BBC News, 8 September 2005
  36. ^ Iraqi High Tribunal announces second Saddam trial to open Associated Press, 27 June 2006
  37. ^ Dictator Who Ruled Iraq With Violence Is Hanged for Crimes Against Humanity The New York Times, 30 December 2006
  38. ^ Omar Sinan (25 June 2007). "Iraq to hang 'Chemical Ali'". Tampa Bay Times. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 17 October 2015. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  39. ^ 'Chemical Ali' sentenced to hang CNN, 24 June 2007
  40. ^ "Saddam Hussein's henchman 'Chemical Ali' executed". The Daily Telegraph. 25 January 2010. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
  41. ^ "Iraqi president opposes minister's hanging". The Irish Times. Retrieved 17 March 2020.
  42. ^ "Iraq: Dujail Judgment Marred by Serious Flaws". Human Rights Watch. 21 June 2007. Archived from the original on 23 March 2023.
  43. ^ "Convictions in the Anfal Trial". Opinio Juris. 24 June 2007. Archived from the original on 14 August 2022.
  44. ^ "Q & A: The Anfal Trial". Human Rights Watch. 22 June 2007. Archived from the original on 1 October 2022.
  45. ^ Ashok, Abhinav (5 July 2020). "Iraq Under Saddam Hussein and His Flawed Trial". Legal Bites. Archived from the original on 11 June 2023.
  46. ^ Hiltermann 2008, Bibliography.
  47. ^ Black 1993, p. 28.
  48. ^ a b c d e Montgomery 2001, pp. 78–79.
  49. ^ a b Alshaibi, Wisam. "Weaponizing Iraq's Archives". Middle East Report (291 (Summer 2019) ed.).
  50. ^ Beaumont, Peter (25 March 2007). "We failed, says pro-war Iraqi". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  51. ^ Pelletiere 2016, p. 62.
  52. ^ Cockrell-Abdullah 2018, p. 70.
  53. ^ "Anfal campaign receives national day of remembrance". Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 21 July 2018.
  54. ^ Majid, Bareez. "The Museum of Amna Suraka: a Critical Case Study of Kurdistani Memory Culture". Leiden University. Retrieved 3 August 2022.
  55. Huffington Post
    . March 2013. Retrieved 31 August 2013.

Sources

Further reading
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