From Halabja to Rojava… International conspiracies reproduce tragedy with new faces

Between 1980 and 1988, a devastating war took place between Iraq and Iran. During this period, a close alliance was recorded between the United States and several Western countries with Saddam Hussein’s regime in order to confront Tehran. According to a report issued by the U.S. Senate in 1994, Washington supplied Iraq with enormous quantities of raw materials necessary for the manufacture of chemical weapons.

At that time, the Kurds in Southern Kurdistan were engaged in a bitter struggle to obtain their legitimate rights. As is the case today, they found themselves victims of the rivalry between two occupying states and the manipulations of international powers. Under the weight of the oppression and brutality practiced by Saddam’s regime, the Kurds were compelled to lean toward the Iranian side. Yet the greatest and bloodiest consequences of that war, and the use of internationally prohibited weapons were paid for by the Kurdish people alone.

Black March… When poisonous gases killed 5,000 Kurds in minutes

At exactly 11:35 a.m. on March 16, 1988, the Iraqi army carried out an aerial attack on the city of Halabja. It was not an ordinary military assault; it was a calculated act of genocide. Investigations and medical reports later revealed the use of a deadly mixture of internationally banned chemical gases, including nerve agents, blister agents, and blood agents.

This day has since become known in Kurdish collective memory as “Black March.” On that day, by direct orders from Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali,” the Iraqi army launched a chemical weapons attack that resulted in the mass killing of more than 5,000 Kurdish civilians within moments.

On the 38th anniversary of the massacre… Rojava faces the prospect of a new Halabja

As the Kurdish people in Rojava, like those in the rest of Kurdistan commemorate the 38th anniversary of the Halabja massacre, they now find themselves confronting what many view as new chapters of Halabja. Through renewed international conspiracies and the use of weapons supplied by global powers, there are attempts to reproduce the tragedy in the region, this time by employing armed factions affiliated with the Turkish state and other groups in an effort to set communities against one another and carry out ethnic mass extermination.

Between January 6 and January 29 of the current year (2026), areas of North and East Syria were subjected to a wave of brutal attacks that included killings, kidnappings, and mutilation of bodies. Women’s bodies were thrown from building balconies, the braids of Kurdish women were cut, and atrocities were reported that reached the point of removing the hearts and eyes of young men.

According to sources from the Kongra Star movement, citing sources within the Afrin Social Association, the fate of nearly 4,000 Kurds, including around 2,700 in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh neighborhoods in the city of Aleppo alone remains unknown to this day.

The difference between 1988 and 2026

Despite the brutality of these plans, there is a fundamental difference between the tragedy of 1988 and the reality of 2026. Today, the Kurdish people have risen with one voice against the massacres in Rojava. The considerable efforts made by leader Abdullah Ocalan have also helped prevent the occurrence of an even larger and more widespread massacre. Nevertheless, these schemes continue, as hostile forces through the Turkish state and some actors operating in the name of Arab tribes seek to launch attacks and ignite a Kurdish-Arab war.

Use and disposal… Lessons from the fate of Saddam and “Chemical Ali” to today’s instruments

Today, there is an urgent need for the Turkish and Arab peoples to carefully reflect on the fate that ultimately befell Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al-Majid (“Chemical Ali”). The same international powers that incited and encouraged them to wage genocidal wars against the Kurdish people were the very powers that later turned against them. Eighteen years after the Halabja massacre, those powers led Saddam and Chemical Ali to the gallows.

ANHA