Halabja

Overview

Halabja is a city inhabited by Kurds in northern Iraq. It also gives its name to one of four governorates of the autonomous Kurdistan Region, alongside Erbil, Duhok and Sulaymaniyah. The city is known internationally as the site of the Halabja massacre. On March 16, 1988, forces of Saddam Hussein dropped chemical bombs on Halabja in retaliation for Kurdish resistance to his regime. The attack killed an estimated 5,000 civilians, including women and children, and wounded more than 10,000. Its effects continued to shape life in the city decades later.^[1][2][3]

Geography

Halabja lies near the border with Iran. The surrounding area includes Shinirwe Mountain, which overlooks the city, and Mount Bemu in Halabja Province. Halabja’s border location later influenced both local party politics and armed activity. A new mosque became a prominent feature of the rebuilt city, while farms around Halabja continued to produce crops including peanuts, chickpeas and melons.^[2][4][5]

Modern history

The attack on Halabja formed part of Hussein’s genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds. Across ten months in 1987 and 1988, Iraqi forces destroyed about 4,000 of northern Iraq’s 4,655 villages and killed as many as 180,000 Iraqi citizens. Halabja was one of multiple places where Iraqi forces used chemical weapons against civilians. Its destruction was therefore part of a wider campaign of village destruction and mass killing, rather than an isolated wartime incident.^[3][6]

Survivors described children suffocating after Iraqi aircraft dropped chemical bombs. One survivor recalled gas that smelled of almonds and reported nearly constant respiratory infections after inhaling it. Doctors in Halabja observed sharp increases in lung fibrosis, infertility and birth defects. Medical specialists also reported rising rates of rare cancers, particularly digestive and intestinal cancers; doctors at the city’s Emergency Hospital reported increases of 300 to 1,000 percent in rates of previously rare cancers and birth defects. Survivors continued to need treatment for decades, while medicine shortages in local hospitals worsened their conditions. Some farmers also struggled to sell produce because buyers feared that crops grown near Halabja could cause birth defects.^[3][6]

International response to the attack included a failed effort to censure Hussein at the United Nations. On September 1, 1988, Halima Warzazi blocked a motion concerning the gassing of Kurds in Halabja through a procedural “no action” motion.^[7]

Kurds rose against Hussein in 1991. In 1992, the United States, Britain and France established a no-fly zone over northern Iraq to protect Kurds after his genocidal campaign. The uprising and protected northern safe haven changed Halabja’s political setting, allowing regional parties to compete for authority beyond the direct control of Hussein’s government. In elections for a regional parliament, the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan received 6 percent of the vote but remained locally significant around Halabja.^[2][8]

Security

A civil war between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party from 1994 to 1996 left the northern Iraqi safe haven divided into separate sectors. Under a coalition agreement, the Patriotic Union ceded the Islamic Movement territory between Halabja, Tawella and Panjwin near the Iranian border. The division created space for political Islam groups around Halabja. In January 2001, a senior Patriotic Union politician reported that the Iranian regime had facilitated the transfer of Kaplanist movement members to a base near the city.^[2]

Shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Jund al-Islam established itself on Shinirwe Mountain overlooking Halabja. The group declared its intention to undertake jihad in the area. Years later, security concerns persisted near the Iranian border. In January 2018, Kurdish internal security forces reported finding weapons, explosives and equipment in hiding places used by Islamic State operatives near Mount Bemu in Halabja District. Kurdish forces reported that their activity drove the operatives toward Iran.^[2][5]

Present day

Halabja’s survivors faced further hardship when Baghdad withheld the Kurdistan Region’s budget share beginning in 2014. Some struggled to support their families while continuing to require medical care. Following the 2017 independence referendum, Iraq banned international flights to and from the region’s airports. The restriction made travel for treatment harder, impeded international aid and medical supplies, and, together with a new Iraqi visa requirement, made visits by foreign medical specialists more difficult.^[1]

Halabja holds only a few seats in the Kurdistan Region’s legislature. Turnout there was lower than the region’s roughly 72 percent overall turnout in the 2024 regional election. Local disputes over public accountability and press access also drew attention. In August 2023, a Halabja journalist reported death threats from people he believed to be Iranian intelligence personnel after covering interference in regional politics. The following month, a Halabja court sentenced the head of a public-sector watchdog organization to six months in prison for defamation after it reported corruption in the local health directorate.^[9][10]

During the Kurdistan Regional Government prime minister’s first visit to Halabja in February 2024, his security team prevented nine media outlets from covering the visit while allowing two outlets affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party. In May, a Halabja University professor was arrested after posting Facebook criticism of injustice and corruption. These incidents occurred in a city still managing the long medical and economic aftermath of the 1988 attack.^[11]