Qualla: Halabja

Halabja: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Enno Lenze from Berlin, Germany, CC BY 2.0. Halabja's sister city is Guernica. The pairing is not symbolic decoration. Both places were bombed by their own governments. Both became single-word shorthand for atrocity. But Halabja is also a living city -- capital of Iraq's 19th province as of April 2025 -- where people raise families in a fertile valley at the base of the Hawraman Mountains, nine miles from the Iranian border. The Shahrizor Plain stretches to the west, green and agricultural. The Zagros range rises to the east. Kurds here speak Sorani in the city and Hewrami in the surrounding villages. The landscape is beautiful. The history is brutal. Both are true at once.

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Image: Enno Lenze from Berlin, Germany | CC BY 2.0

Halabja: Roots in the Zagros Foothills

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bamo Halabjay, CC BY-SA 4.0. The history of Halabja reaches back to the Akkadian Empire in the 24th century BC. The ancient city-kingdom of the Lullubi, a highland people who clashed with Mesopotamian empires, is believed to have been located in the Halabja area. Excavations at nearby Bakr Awa have confirmed...

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Image: Bamo Halabjay | CC BY-SA 4.0

Halabja: The Princess of the Brave

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0. During World War I, British soldiers stationed in Halabja encountered Adela Khanum, a Kurdish leader whose authority transcended the expectations of the era. She saved the lives of several British soldiers, and the British honored her with the title Khan Bahadur -- Princess of th...

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Image: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) | CC BY-SA 4.0

Halabja: March 16, 1988

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zaxo, CC BY 3.0. On that date, during the final phase of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi government forces carried out a large-scale chemical weapons assault on Halabja. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, supported by Iranian units, had briefly captured the town, prompting a rapid Iraqi counterattack. The resp...

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Image: Zaxo | CC BY 3.0

Halabja: Rebuilding and Its Discontents

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aya sh.yusuf, CC BY-SA 4.0. After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, the Kurdistan Regional Government began reconstruction in Halabja, rebuilding bombed-out homes and paving new roads. A memorial was constructed for the victims of the chemical attack. But residents grew frustrated with the pa...

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Image: Aya sh.yusuf | CC BY-SA 4.0

Halabja: A Province of Its Own

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aya sh.yusuf, CC BY-SA 4.0. On April 14, 2025, the Iraqi Parliament designated Halabja as Iraq's 19th province, giving the city and its surrounding region a degree of administrative autonomy it had never held. The decision carried symbolic weight far beyond bureaucratic reorganization. For a city that had b...

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Image: Aya sh.yusuf | CC BY-SA 4.0