Al-Anfal Campaign

The al-Anfal Campaign was an anti-Kurdish campaign lead by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein between 1986 and 1989 (during and just after the Iran-Iraq war). The campaign takes its name from Surat Al-Anfal in the Qur'an, which was used as a code name by the former Iraqi Baathist regime for a genocidal campaign against the Kurdish community of southern Kurdistan.

The campaign, which began in 1986 and lasted until 1989, is said to have cost the lives of 182,000 civilian Kurds, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. The campaign was headed by Ali Hasan al-Majid, a cousin of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The Anfal campaign included the use of firing squads, mass deportation (Arabization), rockets fired from helicopter gunships and chemical weapons, which earned al-Majid the sobruquet "Chemical Ali". Some allege the Halabja poison gas attack to have been part of Al-Anfal, which is thought to have killed about 5,000 civilians, including babies and children (though the incident occurred in the midst of fighting during the Iraq-Iran War). The al-Anfal campaign also involved the alleged killing and torturing of Kurdish families.

"Arabization," another major element of Al-Anfal, was a tactic used by Saddam's regime to drive Kurdish families out of their homes in cities like Kirkuk, which are in the valuable oil-field areas.

The campaign utilized heavy population redistribution, most notably in Kirkuk, the results of which now plague negotiations between Iraq's Shi'a United Iraqi Alliance and Kurdish Democratic Alliance. Saddam's Ba'athist regime built several public housing facilities in Kirkuk as part of his "Arabization," shifting poor Arabs from Iraq's southern regions to Kirkuk with the lure of inexpensive housing. Iraq's Kurds now strongly resent Arabs still residing in Saddam-era Kirkuk housing, and view them as a barrier to Kirkuk's recognition as a Kurdish city (and regional seat) in an increasingly sovereign Kurdish_Autonomous_Region. Many Kurds believe that since Saddam's "Arabization" was a form of ethnic cleansing, they should be allowed to "undo" its campaign in post-Saddam Iraq, ie expelling those whose Arabs who came north as a result of Saddam's programs.