Topic: Anfal operation targeted only Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian troops

Media: The Associated Press
Byline: By RAWYA RAGEH
Date: 22 August 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq_One of the defendants in the new trial of Saddam Hussein
insisted on Tuesday that the military was attacking only Iranian troops and
Kurdish rebels when it launched the Anfal campaign in the 1980s in which
tens of thousands of Kurds were killed.

Sultan Hashim al-Tai spoke on the second day of the trial, in which Saddam
is charged with genocide over the 1987-1988 Operation Anfal in northern
Iraq.

Al-Tai, who was the commander of Task Force Anfal and head of the Iraqi Army
1st Corps, said Anfal was launched in areas of the north that had been
occupied by Iranian troops with the help of Iraqi Kurdish guerrillas.

"The goal was to fight an organized, armed army ... the goal was not
civilians," said al-Tai.

Al-Tai is one of six co-defendants with Saddam in the trial.