Word: halabja
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Dates: during 1988-1988
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...family were relatively fortunate. According to some reports, the Iraqis killed at least 2,200 civilians and 250 pesh mergas. Though not all the dead were victims of chemical warfare, the attacks revived ghastly memories of Iraq's poison-gas blitz last March in the village of Halabja, where an estimated 4,000 Kurds died...
...accusations came shortly after the release of a U.N. report that graphically documented the use of gas in Iraqi attacks earlier this summer. Even those reports of human suffering paled beside the horrific descriptions of Iraq's most brutal assault, the bombing last March of the village of Halabja in northern Iraq, then held by Iran, with mustard gas, cyanide and a nerve gas. When the deadly yellow and white clouds settled, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bloated Kurdish bodies littered the streets. Despite the incontrovertible evidence of a chemical onslaught, Iraq did not admit to the use of poison...
Since the Halabja carnage, reaction in diplomatic circles and the international media has been strangely muted. Iraq's flagrant violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol did not precipitate an enraged outcry from the 105 nations that have signed the ban on chemical weapons through the years, nor did it inspire any attempt to bring Iraq before the International Court of Justice. Despite "major acts of genocide," says Steven Rose, a neurobiologist at Britain's Open University, "the fact is, Iraq has got away with...
...ground-to- ground missiles so they could reach Iranian cities. Between February and April, in the so-called war of the cities, Iraq launched 160 missile attacks on urban areas in Iran, terrifying the civilian population. The other shocker was Iraq's use in March of chemical weapons at Halabja, in northern Iraq, which severely demoralized Iranian troops, even though the main victims were rebellious Kurdish residents of Iraq...
Iraqi soldiers also reclaimed a string of mountain peaks on the northeastern frontier, placing them in good position to recapture the strategic Kurdish city of Halabja. Iranian leaders tried to sound optimistic, but they could not hide the reversal of their fortunes. Said Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi: "War is a complicated and technical matter, and naturally at a certain point retreat will help the final victory...