26. Iraqi Military Against Kurdish Village of Halabja, 1988: 5,000 Casualties, 8,000 Wounded
Halabja was a village in Iraqi Kurdistan that, under the reign of terror that Saddam Hussein represented, was decimated in a chemical attack. On March 16, 1988, nearly two dozen Iraqi fighter planes flew overhead and dropped bombs filled with mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and possibly also cyanide.
By the time the villagers realized what had happened, it was too late. Witnesses said that a cloud of smoke billowed 150 up into the air; that cloud was composed of poisonous gases that killed over 5000 people, many of them civilians.
