The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. Active hostilities began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 by both sides. Iraq's primary rationale for the attack against Iran cited the need to prevent Ruhollah Khomeini—who had spearheaded the Iranian Revolution in 1979—from exporting the new Iranian ideology to Iraq. There were also fears among the Iraqi leadership of Saddam Hussein that Iran, a theocratic state with a population predominantly composed of Shia Muslims, would exploit sectarian tensions in Iraq by rallying Iraq's Shia majority against the Baʽathist government, which was officially secular and dominated by Sunni Muslims. Iraq also wished to replace Iran as the power player in the Persian Gulf, which was not seen as an achievable objective prior to the Islamic Revolution because of Pahlavi Iran's economic and military superiority as well as its close relationships with the United States and Israel.
Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s. Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
Iraq under the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party saw severe violations of human rights. Secret police, state terrorism, torture, mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, deportations, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, assassinations, chemical warfare, and the destruction of the Mesopotamian marshes were some of the methods Saddam Hussein and the country's Ba'athist government used to maintain control. Saddam committed crimes of aggression during the Iran–Iraq War and the Gulf War, which violated the Charter of the United Nations. The total number of deaths and disappearances related to repression during this period is unknown, but is estimated to be at least 250,000 to 290,000 according to Human Rights Watch, with the great majority of those occurring as a result of the Anfal genocide in 1988 and the suppression of the uprisings in Iraq in 1991. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued regular reports of widespread imprisonment and torture.
Ali Hassan Majid al-Tikriti, nicknamed Chemical Ali, was an Iraqi politician and military commander under Saddam Hussein who served as defence minister, interior minister, and chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service. He was also the governor of Kuwait during much of the 1990–91 Gulf War.
The Halabja massacre, also known as the Halabja chemical attack, was a massacre of Kurdish people that took place on 16 March 1988, during the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict in the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in Halabja, Kurdistan, Iraq. The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in Kurdistan, as well as part of the Iraqi Army's attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the capture of the town by the Iranian Army. A United Nations (UN) medical investigation concluded that mustard gas was used in the attack, along with unidentified nerve agents.
Halabja is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and the capital of Halabja Governorate, located about 240 km (150 mi) northeast of Baghdad and 14 km (9 mi) from the Iranian border.
This article focuses on the status of ethnic minorities in contemporary Iran.
In violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Iraqi Army initiated two failed and one successful (1978–1991) offensive chemical weapons (CW) programs. President Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) pursued the most extensive chemical program during the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), when he waged chemical warfare against his foe. He also used chemicals in 1988 in the Al-Anfal Campaign against his civilian Kurdish population and during a popular uprising in the south in 1991.
The War of the Cities was five series of air raids, missile attacks and artillery shellings on major cities and urban areas initiated by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Air Force, with the aim of disrupting the morale of Iran during the Iran–Iraq War. The first phase of air strikes were undertaken by the Iraqi Air Force, which normally was followed by retaliation by the Iranian Armed Forces.
Operation Dawn 4 was an Iranian operation of the Iran–Iraq War launched in October 1983. At the end of the operation Iran had captured a small amount of territory from the Iraqis.
Serow, also Romanized as Sero and Sīroo, is a city in, and the capital of, Sumay-ye Beradust District of Urmia County, West Azerbaijan province, Iran.
The 1983–1986 Kurdish rebellions in Iraq occurred during the Iran–Iraq War as PUK and KDP Kurdish militias of Iraqi Kurdistan rebelled against Saddam Hussein as part of the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict, in an attempt to form an independent state. With Iraqi government forces occupied by the Iran-Iraq War, Kurdish Peshmerga succeeded in taking control of some enclaves, with Iranian logistic and sometimes military support. The initial rebellion resulted in stalemate by 1985.
The Tehran Peace Museum is a member of the International Network of Museums for Peace. The main objective of the museum is to promote a culture of peace through raising awareness about the devastating consequences of war, with a focus on the health and environmental impacts of chemical weapons. Currently housed in a building donated by the municipality of Tehran within the historic City Park, the Tehran Peace Museum is as much an interactive peace center as a museum.
On 9 January 1987, at the beginning of the Battle of Shalamcheh, in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War, the Iranian Behbehan Battalion came under a heavy aerial chemical bomb attack by Iraqi forces. The Behbahan Battalion was positioned near Shalamcheh, in the south of Iran, about 10 km from the port of Khorramshahr.
Disabled Iranian veterans, called janbaz in Iran, mostly constitute the disabled veterans of the Iran–Iraq war. According to Mohammad Esfandiari, director of communications and public relations of Iran's Martyrs and Disabled Veterans' Organization, there are 548,499 disabled veterans of the Iran–Iraq War living in Iran as of June 2014, a number which includes the victims of Iraq's chemical weapon attacks on Iran, called "chemical janbaz". Among the disabled veterans are more than 10,000 veterans with foot and ankle injuries related to war.
During the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988), Iraq engaged in chemical warfare against Iran on multiple occasions, including more than 30 targeted attacks on Iranian civilians. The Iraqi chemical weapons program, which had been active since the 1970s, was aimed at regulated offensive use, as evidenced in the chemical attacks against Iraqi Kurds as part of the Anfal campaign in the late 1980s. The Iraqis had also utilized chemical weapons against Iranian hospitals and medical centres. According to a 2002 article in the American newspaper The Star-Ledger, 20,000 Iranian soldiers and combat medics were killed on the spot by nerve gas. As of 2002, 5,000 of the 80,000 survivors continue to seek regular medical treatment, while 1,000 are hospital inpatients. Though the use of chemical weapons in international armed conflict was banned under the Geneva Protocol, much of the international community remained indifferent to the attacks; Iraq's military campaign in Iran was supported by the United States and the Soviet Union, both of whom had sought to contain Iranian influence after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
2016–present clashes in West Iran refers to the ongoing military clashes between Kurdish insurgent party Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which began in April 2016. Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) and Komalah expressed their support to the Kurdish cause of PDKI as well, with both clashing with Iranian security forces in 2016 and 2017 respectively. In parallel, a leftist Iranian Kurdish rebel group PJAK resumed military activities against Iran in 2016, following a long period of stalemate.
On 28 June 1987, Iraq dropped mustard gas bombs on Sardasht, West Azerbaijan, Iran. In two separate bombing runs on four residential areas, the attack killed 130 people and injured 8,000. The gas attacks occurred during the Iran–Iraq War when Iraq frequently used chemical weapons against Iranian civilians and soldiers.
Walnut Tree is a 2020 Kurdish- Iranian biographical war drama film directed by Mohammad Hossein Mahdavian and written by Ebrahim Amini and Hossein Hassani. it revolves around the Chemical bombing of Sardasht of 1987. The film screened for the first time at the 38th Fajr Film Festival and received 11 nominations. Mahdavian won a Crystal Simorgh for Best Director and Maadi won the Crystal Simorgh for Best Actor for his performance.
Doleto Prison is a prison located in the Doleto neighborhood of Sardasht,West Azerbaijan, Iran. During the early stages of the Iranian Revolution, members of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Doleto prison in Iran, including physical abuse, forced labour, executions and torture. Doleto Prison has been accused of committing "serious human rights abuses" against its political dissidents and critics of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan. This prison was active from 1978 to 1982.
