# Anfal Campaign The Anfal Campaign was the genocidal counterinsurgency [[Saddam Hussein]]'s regime waged against Iraq's Kurdish population in 1986–1989, peaking in 1988. Directed largely by Ali Hassan al-Majid — "Chemical Ali" — it killed an estimated 50,000 to 182,000 Kurds. ## Systematic Destruction Named, with grim cynicism, after a chapter of the Quran ("the spoils of war"), Anfal combined mass executions, forced disappearances, the destruction of thousands of villages, and repeated chemical-weapons attacks, of which the [[Halabja Massacre]] was the most notorious. Carried out during and just after the [[Iran-Iraq War]] while Saddam still enjoyed Western tolerance, it was later recognized by several governments as genocide. Anfal is the foundational atrocity behind Kurdish demands for autonomy and the reason Iraq's Kurds welcomed the fall of Saddam in the 2003 [[Iraq War]]. *See also: [[Iraqi History Hub]], [[Kurds]], [[Halabja Massacre]], [[Saddam Hussein]], [[Iran-Iraq War]]*