Leader Barzani posted on X, commemorating the 36th anniversary of the chemical bombing of Halabja, "The crime of the chemical attack on Halabja is an attestation of the inhuman mentality of the enemies of the Kurdish people. Alas, 36 years after the Halabja tragedy, there are still some within the Iraqi state who work in pursuit of denying the rights of the Kurdish people."
On March 16, 1988, Iraqi warplanes flew over Halabja for five hours, dropping a mixture of mustard gas, sarin, and nerve gases. The bombardment resulted in five thousand victims, mostly women, children, and thousands wounded.
In January 2010, Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", the cousin of Saddam Hussein, was sentenced to death for his role in this massacre.
The chemical attack on Halabja occurred in the final days of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted for eight years. It was the largest chemical attack directed against civilian populations of a single ethnicity, the Kurds. This conforms to the description of genocide in international law, which should be directed against a particular group or ethnicity with the intent of revenge or punishment.