Who are the Kurds?

• The Kurds are a distinct cultural group whose homeland stretches across several countries in the Middle East, including Iraq. After World War I, when many new countries formed, Kurds hoped for a state of their own. But they never got one.
  
• During the Iran-Iraq War, Kurdish separatists in Iraq sided with Iran. As a result, the Hussein regime went after the Kurds with a vengeance in operations known as the Anfal campaign. The Iraqis attacked the Kurds with poison gas, killing as many as 180,000 of them, including women and children.
• Hussein put one of his closest aides—his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali”—in charge of the operation. Years later, Chemical Ali would be hanged for the crime.

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Genocide at Halacha - 1988