In the long shadow of Halabja
A report from Pugwash Iraq’s first international conference
Thirty-seven years ago, on 16 March 1988, Iraq’s military forces hit the Kurdish town of Halabja with artillery rockets and napalm bombs, followed by sustained bombing runs releasing chemical weapons. Between three and five thousand people perished, and many thousands more suffered life-altering injuries. Almost all civilians, an estimated three-quarters of them women and children. Genetic defects resulting from their exposure to mustard and nerve agents meant that even today, their offspring too have inherited these chromosomal anomalies, making them transgenerational victims of chemical warfare.
To remember the massacre, Pugwash Iraq organised a conference in Slemani (Sulaymaniya) in northeast Iraq on 19 April, combined with a commemorative visit to Halabja on the next day. Pugwash Iraq is part of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for its efforts to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in international security. The national chapter was established last year, and the meeting was its first major event. The choice for Halabja as a central theme was deliberate, symbolically linking the past with the future. The three sessions addressed the genocidal employment of chemical weapons (CW) against the Kurds in the 1980-88 Gulf War, developments in the international regime banning chemical warfare and the evolution of CW threats and use, and the prospective zone exempt from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons covering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This posting reflects on the morning presentations and discussions on CW.
Making sense of chemical warfare
For people who have experienced chemical warfare, the memories are long-lasting. Ypres in Belgium is still associated with the first major gas attack of the First World War in 1915. Two years later, in 1917, the town gave its name to a mustard agent variant because of its first use there. The principal meeting place inside the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Warfare (OPCW) headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, is aptly named the ‘Ypres Room’. Seven decades later, Yperite was one of the toxicants Saddam Hussein’s air force unleashed against Halabja. A copy of the statue of a father trying to protect his young son outside the Halabja Memorial occupies a central place in the garden behind the Ypres Room, linking both events and reminding diplomats and visitors of the horrors of chemical warfare.
In his opening remarks, the President of the Pugwash Conferences and Pugwash Iraq, Dr Hussain Al-Shahristani, reminded the participants that the security situation in the Middle East remains complex and precarious. With too many ongoing conflicts, non-conventional weapons, especially nuclear arms, hang as a looming menace over the region. The conference’s central theme pertains to the elimination of CBRN weapons in the MENA countries. Dr Aram Mohamed Qadir, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research in the Kurdish Regional Government and speaking on behalf of Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani, emphasised the need to abolish CW and other non-conventional arms. He described the people in Kurdistan as victims of such weapon use and wondered whether the international tools suffice for those who are still suffering from the consequences of exposure. Much work and international cooperation are still needed to overcome the
psychological, physiological and environmental effects of toxic agent use in Halabja and its environment. If CBRN weapons were to be further developed and utilised, people would continue to live with anguish and pain. In conclusion, he demanded a guarantee on the non-use of CBRN weapons.
A few days before the conference, the Iraqi government declared the Halabja region a new governorate. Ms Nuxsha Nasih Ahmed, the mayor and acting governor of Halabja, described the challenges of governing a region that had been devastated by chemical warfare. The consequences affected urban centres, villages, and agriculture. Moreover, they forced massive internal migration. She asked why such hatred had been directed against the Kurds and wondered aloud whether there was any scientific answer. Halabja was a case of a government using CW against its population, and she noted that the al-Assad regime also waged chemical warfare against its Syrian citizens. Nasih Ahmed called on the international community to fight any possible use of CBRN weapons and to prosecute the companies that sold chemicals to Saddam Hussein. In conclusion, she suggested that Pugwash Iraq and the University of Halabja jointly organise the next conference on the prevention of CBRN warfare.
Not so long ago, yet such a different time
Listening to the presentations during the first session, I realised how much has changed since the Iran-Iraq war, particularly Halabja. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution establishing the UN Secretary-General’s Mechanism to investigate alleged use of chemical or biological weapons (CBW) in November 1987 (followed by the UN Security Council in August 1988). In January 1989, France, as the depositary state, convened an international conference to restore the authority of the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which outlaws CBW use in armed conflict, in the wake of the Iran-Iraq war. The event led to the expanded understanding that the prohibition applies to internal conflicts, too. Three years later, in September 1992, the negotiation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was concluded successfully. The treaty opened for signature in January 1993 and entered into force in April 1997. It gave the OPCW the authority to investigate CW use. It further developed the mandate and investigative capacities when confronted with the challenges of chemical warfare in the Syrian civil war after the country had become a party to the convention.
In 1988, the situation was quite different. In August, after the cease-fire agreement with Iran, Saddam Hussein’s forces launched a massive offensive against the Kurds, pressing them against the Turkish border, which Ankara had closed. During the campaign in the mountainous region that lasted into September, they released huge volumes of toxic agents. The first speaker, Howard Hu (via video link), was a member of a Physicians for Human Rights team that in October 1988 managed to investigate the Iraqi chemical assault despite the region’s seclusion. It was impossible to have elaborate investigative equipment on hand, so, in addition to some physical examinations of victims and video recordings, they used a specially designed 120-item questionnaire to build internal consistency reports.
Next, Joost Hiltermann reviewed the attack on Halabja in detail. Based on numerous interviews conducted in the years following the chemical bombing raids on the city, he painted a detailed picture. He noted that already the year before, Saddam’s air force had begun to target urban centres with chemical bombs deliberately. Sardasht in north-west Iran was attacked in June 1987 and suffered over 100 fatalities and several thousand casualties. Removed from the main battlefield zones, the city was undefended and unprepared. Halabja confirmed the shift in Iraq’s strategy, which increasingly took on the hallmarks of a genocidal campaign against the Kurds.
Dr Erad Manuchar San Ahmed, a biologist, highlighted in great detail the gendered impact of the bombing of Halabja. While many immediate survivors of mustard and nerve agents suffered injuries requiring lifelong intensive medical care, next-generation women continue to bear the social and economic consequences of their mothers’ and grandmothers’ exposure to the toxicants. Genetic anomalies cause so-called ‘long abortions’, whereby they suffer constant cramps ending in stillborn, often malformed foetuses or premature babies. The rate of untimely deaths among children past their first birthday is high. The social stigma and divorce rates for women struggling with the transgenerational consequences of chemical warfare agents drive them into isolation, where they continue to suffer social discrimination. San Ahmed denounced the social constraints on the female victims to be outspoken and specific about their condition and, therefore, to assume societal roles.
Present and future challenges with chemical weapons
In the second morning session, I discussed how the chemical threat landscape is evolving fast and how the CWC stands up to this challenge. Meanwhile, CW use has changed considerably from large-scale warfare to acts of terrorism or crime. More recently, toxic agents and toxins were also applied in assassination attempts, and they seem to have become part of hybrid operations, witness the disinformation and lawfare campaigns targeting the OPCW and denying the use of riot control agents as a method of warfare.
The conception of ‘terrorism’ also appears to be shifting from instilling fear into a society in the pursuit of goals understood by a target population to hampering or preventing the functioning of a government, (international) organisations or other institutions. Moreover, the term ‘terrorist’ is increasingly used to characterise an opposing armed formation or domestic adversaries. It seems to justify the non-application of the laws of war, humanitarian laws or democratic rights to them and to accompany the use of types of weaponry (e.g. incendiary weapons) that escape international regulation or, at a minimum, violate basic principles against indiscriminate warfare. A key question is how the CWC can counter the onslaught of actions aimed at delegitimising the treaty, the OPCW and its procedures.
Mohammed Jawad al-Sharaa reviewed the status of Syria’s CW programme and the remaining challenges for its complete elimination. He described the country’s acquisition of CW capacities from its programme’s inception until the start of the civil war in 2011. The sarin attack against Ghouta in August 2013, confirmed by a UN investigation team, led Syria to become a party to the CWC and the start of the dismantling of the CW programme and destruction of toxic agents, munitions and CW-related infrastructure. However, Syrian obstruction frustrated the OPCW’s aims to close the CW file, and the repeated use of chlorine and other toxic chemicals as weapons of warfare, mainly by Syrian forces but also by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, led to additional investigations by OPCW teams. Following the toppling of the Assad regime in December 2024, Syria reached out to the OPCW to help it with the complete elimination of its CW and associated infrastructure. Nevertheless, as al-Sharaa concluded, many items and large volumes of agents and precursor chemicals remain unaccounted for. As long as they exist, they represent potential threats.
In the final presentation of the morning, I spoke about regional disarmament for the MENA countries, focussing on CBW. There are currently three international agreements in force restricting CBW. The 1925 Geneva Protocol outlaws their use in armed conflict. The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the CWC ban their respective weapon categories’ development, acquisition, possession, and use. While all states in the MENA region are party to at least one of these accords, Egypt and Israel are neither party to the BTWC nor the CWC, and Djibouti and Syria must still join the BTWC. MENA diplomats and commentators often consider CBW control the low-hanging fruit. Still, the continuous refusal of these states to join the BTWC and CWC suggests other political or security factors are in play.
The other alternative is to have a regional accord that covers the three non-conventional weapon categories: CW, BW and nuclear weapons. One option would be to have an overarching document laying out state parties’ core prohibitions, obligations and rights. Under that chapeau document, there would be three subsidiary treaties (protocols), one for each weapon category. Such an approach, however, raises important questions about weapon definitions, verification provisions, tools and activities, and how to engage key stakeholder communities, including the industry and scientists. These types of discussions still need to start.
I also announced the re-initiation of the Pugwash CBW Working Group in the summer of 2025 and that it would be looking into setting up CBW-focussed activities supporting MENA regional disarmament.
