In the early days of the imposed war, the Iraqi regime began to use the chemical weapons in a very limited sense. The place of this crime was in Shalamche, which was located in the most southern occupied territory of Iran. The second time of this crime was in the area of Meymak.

Since Nov 1982 (Azar, 1361) Iraq had been using the lethal chemical weapons here and there. At the beginning, they used a limited amount of Mustard Sulfur (the factor which causes blisters) in order to influence the Iranian combatants during the night assaults.

In the following year (1983), Iraq began to use the chemical weapons in cities of Piranshahr and suburbs of Panjvein. Iran had called the event as the “ the war crime” and the injured were taken to the hospitals of Tehran.

At the end of the same year, Iraq stopped using the chemical weapons. There were two reasons behind it:

1. Because of the Europe’s previous objections about the issue.
2. The revelation of the vast aspects of the usage of the chemical weapons while fighting with Iran.

In the early days of winter 1985 (1364) the Iranian combatants could capture the city of Fav. They did this through the massive offensive operations. The event made Iraq to start using the chemical weapons all over again.

Two years later in the early 1987 (1366) Iraq used the chemical weapons in a large scale in the central front of Sumar. After the operations of Val-fajr- 8, the Iraqi forces used the chemical and at the same time poisonous material, to such an extent that no one have heard of it before. About 7000 cannon balls, mortar shells, containing poisonous material was fired at the positions of the Iranian forces. There had been the continuous case of chemical bombardments, which would mean more than thousands of bombs in 20 days and also the chemically based attacks on the civil areas in Iran.

The chemical bombardment of the border town of Sardasht in June 28,1987 (Tir 7, 1366)by the Iraqi forces was the most tragic and hazardous case which claimed the lives of the civilians and left so many injured. The Islamic Republic of Iran had described this event as the inhuman phenomenon and called that town the second victim of the chemical weapons after the case of Hiroshima.

The most savage case ever, had been in Halabja, which is considered as the most severe one since World War I, which at least claimed the lives of 5000 people and left 7000 injured. These people were Muslim Kurds.

The tragedy of Halabja is obviously comparable to the case of atomic bombardment of Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which was done by the Americans).

Iraq was one of the 120 signatories of Geneva Protocol of 1925, which bans the use of chemical and biological (bacteriological) weapons. However, they continued to use such weapons. . This protocol which was ratified through UN’s Resolution of 2161 B (21) for the second time, clearly bans the use of such weapons. Some parts of protocol read:

“ Since at the war time, the use of the suffocating gasses and the other similar poisonous agents including the liquids and other forms of agents as well, would not be welcomed by the public opinion of the modern world, the involving lands would accept to recognize the ban of the suffocating and poisonous gasses according to the announcement and also they would pledge to consider the case to cover the biological weapons as well and they must assure to observe all foregoing principles.”

Professor Oben Hendrix the head of the laboratory specialized for the poisonous agent of the hospital of Gan University (located in Flanders in north west of Belgium) says: “ Iraq has used three different kinds of gasses. He stressed that the Iraqi forces had used Mustard gasses, nerve gasses, and finally Cyanosion (CN2H2) during the bombardments dated March 17 and 18, 1987. The kinds mentioned above had been used separately within a short period of time so that they formed a highly poisonous cocktail”, he added. In March 26, 1988,The American newspaper of New York Times had described the event in this way: “ This measure is totally (from the different points of view and different meanings) considered as a war crime mixed with the official and shaky denial of Iraq and informal excuses on using an unfair weapons.”