The campaign targeted rural Kurds[3] because its purpose was to eliminate Kurdish rebel groups and Arabize strategic parts of the Kirkuk Governorate.

In 1993, Human Rights Watch released a report on the Anfal campaign based on documents captured by Kurdish rebels during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq; HRW described it as a genocide and estimated between 50,000 and 100,000 deaths.

This characterization of the Anfal campaign was disputed by a 2007 Hague court ruling, which stated that the evidences from the documents were not sufficient to establish the charge of genocide.

Kurdish fighters (peshmerga) fought a guerrilla war against the Iraqi government and established effective control over the Kurdish-inhabited mountainous areas of northern Iraq.

It is also the title of the eighth sura, or chapter, of the Qur'an [8] which describes the victory of 313 followers of the new Muslim faith over almost 900 non-Muslims at the Battle of Badr in 624 AD.

According to Randal, Jash (Kurdish collaborators with the Baathists) were told that taking cattle, sheep, goats, money, weapons and even women was halal (religiously permitted or legal).

[9][better source needed] The Anfal campaign began in February 1988 and continued until August or September and included the use of ground offensives, aerial bombing, chemical warfare, systematic destruction of settlements, mass deportation and firing squads.

The Kurdish Democratic Party-controlled areas in the northwest Iraqi Kurdistan, were the target of the Final Anfal operation in late August and early September 1988.

Then, several hours later, there were attacks at the Jafali Valley headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan near the Iranian border, and the command centers in Sargallu and Bargallu.

[23] From Dibs, groups of detainees were transferred to Nugra Salman[24] in a depression in the desert about 120 km southwest of Samawah,[25] in the Muthanna Governorate.

[26] Arabization, another major element of al-Anfal, was a tactic used by Saddam Hussein's regime to drive pro-insurgent populations out of their homes in villages and cities like Kirkuk, which are in the valuable oil field areas, and relocate them in the southern parts of Iraq.

[3] According to HRW, Kurdish leaders met with Iraqi government official Ali Hassan al-Majid in 1991 and mentioned a figure of 182,000 deaths; the latter reportedly replied that "it couldn't have been more than 100,000".

[1][3] The 182,000 figure provided by the PUK was based on extrapolation[2] and "has no empirical relation to actual disappearances or killings",[3] though it "has assumed mythical status among Kurds".

[30] Human Rights Watch unsuccessfully attempted to attract support for a lawsuit under the Genocide Convention against Iraq at the International Court of Justice.

[6] In December 2005, a court in The Hague convicted Frans van Anraat of complicity in war crimes for his role in selling chemical weapons to the Iraqi government.

The Dutch court said that it was considered "legally and convincingly proven that the Kurdish population meets the requirement under the Genocide Conventions as an ethnic group.

[31] During another trial involving the legal appeal of Van Anraat, The Hague appellate court upheld the previous conviction of his complicity in war crimes; but ruled that actions of Iraqi military during Anfal operations cannot be regarded as constituting a "genocide".

[32][33][34] The verdict of the Hague Court of Appeal stated in 9 May 2007 that tons of Iraqi documents collected by US government, based on which the Human Rights Watch produced its reports, were not enough to establish "a sufficient degree of certainty for a finding of fact in respect of genocide can be derived".

[35] In June 2006, the Iraqi Special Tribunal announced that Saddam Hussein and six co-defendants would face trial on 21 August 2006 in relation to the Anfal campaign.

On 23 June 2007, Ali Hassan al-Majid, and two co-defendants, Sultan Hashem Ahmed and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, were convicted of genocide and related charges and sentenced to death by hanging.

[38] Another two co-defendants (Farhan Jubouri and Saber Abdel Aziz al-Douri) were sentenced to life imprisonment, and one (Taher Tawfiq al-Ani) was acquitted on the prosecution's demand.

[40] Sultan Hashem Ahmed was not hanged due to opposition of the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who opposed capital punishment.

Human Rights Watch stated that many of the charges were "vague" and concluded that the defendants were unable to bring their witnesses due to safety issues within Iraq.

The trial was marked by absence of fundamental judicial proceedings, such as the murder of three defense lawyers and ample utilization of anonymous witnesses by the prosecution; whose claims couldn't be cross-analyzed by the defendants.

[42][43][44] Both within and outside Iraq, the trials by the Special Tribunal have been widely dubbed as a "show parade" designed to execute Saddam and deemed as illegitimate by numerous lawyers and human rights organizations.

[46] Human Rights Watch's 1993 report on Anfal was based on Iraqi documents, examination of grave sites, and interviews with Kurdish survivors.

[48] In exchange for access to the National Archives documents, HRW agreed to help the United States government find information about Iraqi atrocities.

[49] After the invasion of Iraq, Makiya said in December 2003 that the Iraqi document archives contained no "smoking gun" to convict Saddam Hussein of war crimes.

[6] On 28 February 2013, the British House of Commons formally recognized the Anfal as genocide following a campaign which was led by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi, who is of Kurdish descent.