The
al-Anfal Campaign (Harakat al-Anfal/Homleh al-Anfal) , also known as the
Kurdish Genocide,
Operation Anfal or simply
Anfal, was a
genocidal campaign against the
Kurdish people (and other non-Arab populations) in northern Iraq, led by
Ali Hassan al-Majid in the final stages of
Iran–Iraq War. The campaign takes its name from
Surat al-Anfal in the
Qur'an, which was used as a
code name by the former Iraqi
Baathist government for a series of systematic attacks against the
Kurdish population of northern Iraq, conducted between 1986 and 1989 and culminating in 1988. The campaign also targeted other minority communities in Iraq including
Assyrians,
Shabaks,
Iraqi Turkmens,
Yazidis,
Mandeans, and many villages belonging to these ethnic groups were also destroyed.