Operation against the Marsh Arabs in Iraq
With the operation against the Marsh Arabs in Iraq in 1991, a difficult-to-control marshland in southern Iraq near Amara was to be destroyed. For this a drainage ditch was first created. The reed forests that dried up were inflamed with napalm , and battery acid was discharged into rivers. By building various dams, the area was completely sealed off from the rivers that fed it and dried up almost completely within a few years. What remained was a desert of dust . The area has been flooded again since 2003, and nature is gradually recovering. However, the damage done is immense (as of 2016).
The purpose of this operation was to destroy a retreat for Shiite and Islamist guerrillas. Of the 500,000 inhabitants of the region known as " March Arabs ", only 20,000 remained, the rest were expelled, deported, deported to Iran or murdered. This mass murder took place as a reaction of the Ba'ath regime to the Shiite uprisings in southern Iraq as part of the Second Gulf War , but was prepared at the same time as the Anfal operation in Kurdistan .
literature
- ENDLESS TORMENT. The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath , Human Rights Watch 1992, ISBN 1-56432-069-3 ; HRW Report, Chapter 1, "The marshes"
- “Saddam Hussein's last stand? The long way to the III. Gulf War. ”Ed. By Thomas von der Osten-Sacken and Arras Fatah. KVV Konkret Verlag Hamburg 2002. ISBN 3-930786-38-9 .