The Anfal was the name given to a series of eight military offensives conducted between late February to early October 1988. It was part of a systematic campaign of extermination and genocide waged against the Kurdish population of Northern Iraq between 1987-1988. On 29th March 1987, Revolutionary Command Council Decree 160 appointed Ali Hassan al-Majid to the position of Secretary General of the Baath Party's Northern Bureau. He presided over:

• a campaign of mass executions and indiscriminate killing of peshmerga Kurdish fighters and civilians alike.

• the extensive use of chemical weapons against civilian targets.

• arbitrary arrests and detentions.

• forced resettlement.

• the reported destruction of between 1,000-2,000 villages between 1987-1988.¹

This campaign of genocide was documented in great detail by the Iraqi regime. Some of the documents captured from the headquarters of the Iraqi security forces during the Uprising in 1991 and later transported to the United States for assessment and cataloguing reveal the nature of the operations against the Kurds.

There are documents concerning the creation of 'prohibited zones' within which no one is allowed to live and any human beings or animals discovered there are to be killed (Document Reference: 28/3650 of 3rd June 1987).

They refer to 'special strikes' and attacks using 'special ammunition' against villages and then report on the consequential issue in the villages of medical supplies to counter the effects of chemical weapons (Document Reference: M.5/Sh.3/Q.2/9879 of 18th May 1988).

There are orders to carry out 'random bombardments using artillery, helicopters and aircraft at all times of day or night in order to kill the largest number of persons present in those prohibited areas'. Those captured in the area between the ages of 15 and 70 'must be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them'. (Document Reference: 28/4008 of 20th June 1987).

While the documents make reference to 'saboteurs' and 'agents of Iran' and 'subversives', the documents provide damning evidence that the campaign was waged against guerrilla forces and civilians alike. Estimates of the total number of persons killed vary between 50,000 and 100,000,² but may be as high as 182,000.

According to Ali Hassan al-Majid himself, the figure 'couldn't have been more than 100,000'. For a full account of the Anfal, see Iraq's Crime of Genocide, Human Rights Watch, Yale, 1995.

Whilst the Kurds appear to have been the primary target of the Anfal, other minority groups suffered also. Assyrians, also referred to by the Kurds as Kurdish Christians, were also subjected to torture and executions during the campaign, and many of their churches were destroyed by Iraqi government forces.

The Chaldeans are a Catholic subgroup of the Assyrians, who are ethnically distinct from the surrounding Kurds. Assyrians have been allied to Kurds since 1960s. There are approximately one million Assyrians in Northern Iraq, and they form one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Most of them now live in Mosuk, Dohuk and Arbil, as well as in Shaqlawa. The rural Assyrian communities have mainly disappeared. Christians were classed as Arabs in 1977 census. This designation was rejected by Assyrians and Chaldeans, who have taken an active part in the Kurdish movement for years.

The Yazidis are ethnic Kurds, (belonging to a sect which venerates the Peacock Angel or Malak Tawus). They are mainly concentrated on the hilly plains north of Mosul.

• Many Yazidis and Christians were removed from their villages during the "Arabization" campaign of the mid-1970s. Yazidis were removed from their homes and resettled in complexes during the construction of the Saddam dam on the Tigris in 1985.

• Assyrian villages such as Bakhtoma (April 1987) were burned and bulldozed along with Kurdish (Moslem) villages during the Anfal.

• Some of the villagers joined the Kurds in the mountains. Others sought refuge in Turkey. They surrendered during the false amnesty offered by the Iraqi regime on 6th September 1988. Yazidis and Christians were separated from the Kurds and sent to Dohuk. A few days later they were taken away from Dohuk in buses and never seen again. They had refused to 'return to the national ranks' in that they would not accept being designated as Arabs.

¹ The Safe Haven in Northern Iraq, Helena Cook, Kurdish Human Rights Project, 1995, p.112. A survey prepared by the Ministry of Reconstruction & Development of the Kurdish government established after the creation of the Safe Haven stated that a total of 4,049 villages had been destroyed in the governorates of Dohuk, Irbil and Suleimaniyeh by the Ba'athist regime since 1975 (see Iraq's Crime of Genocide, Human Rights Watch, Yale University Press, 1995, p.216).

² The Safe Haven in Northern Iraq, Helena Cook, Kurdish Human Rights Project, 1995, p.112.