The Anfal Campaign
The Anfal began in earnest in early 1988. A directive from Baghdad ordered commanders to bomb rural areas of the north day or night “in order to kill the largest number of persons present.” The same directive declared that “[a]ll persons captured in those villages shall be detained and interrogated by the security services, and those between the ages of 15 and 70 shall be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them.” There were eight Anfal attacks in all, each following a similar pattern. First, air attacks dropped chemical weapons on both civilian and peshmerga targets. Next, ground troops surrounded the villages, looting and setting fire to homes. Then townspeople were herded into army trucks and taken to holding facilities, the largest being Topzawa, an army camp near Kirkuk. At these camps, men and boys deemed old enough to carry a weapon were separated from women, the elderly and young children. Routinely and uniformly, these men and boys were taken to remote sites, executed in groups, and dumped into pre–dug mass graves. Many women and children were also executed, especially those from areas that supported the Kurdish resistance.
The Anfal military campaign ended in September 1988 when Saddam’s regime announced a general amnesty for all Kurds (although they were not permitted to return to “prohibited zones”). In any case, 90 percent of Kurdish villages had essentially been wiped off the map, and the countryside was strewn with land mines to discourage resettlement. The response from the international community was muted, as many nations, including the United States, had supported Hussein with money and arms during the Iran–Iraq war.
The Anfal military campaign ended in September 1988 when Saddam’s regime announced a general amnesty for all Kurds (although they were not permitted to return to “prohibited zones”). In any case, 90 percent of Kurdish villages had essentially been wiped off the map, and the countryside was strewn with land mines to discourage resettlement. The response from the international community was muted, as many nations, including the United States, had supported Hussein with money and arms during the Iran–Iraq war.