![]() | This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (March 2024) |
Anfal campaign | |
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Part of the Iran–Iraq War | |
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Location | Kurdistan Region, Iraq |
Date | February–September 1988 |
Target | Peshmerga Kurdish civilians Iranian Armed Forces |
Attack type | |
Deaths | See Death toll: |
Perpetrator | Ba'athist Iraq |
Motive | Counterinsurgency, Anti-Kurdish sentiment, Arabization |
Convicted | Saddam Hussein Ali Hassan al-Majid Hussein Rashid |
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[3] because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate.[4] The Ba’athist regime committed atrocities on the local Kurdish population, mostly civilians.[5]
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, Human Rights Watch released a report on the Anfal campaign based on documents captured by Kurdish rebels during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq; HRW described it as a genocide and estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths. This characterization of the Anfal campaign was disputed by a 2007 Hague court ruling, which stated that the evidences from the documents were not sufficient to establish the charge of genocide.[b] Although many[specify] Iraqi Arabs reject that there were any mass killings of Kurdish civilians during Anfal,[6] the event is an important element constituting Kurdish national identity.
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