On April 8, 2018 -- an attack in Syria shocked the world.
Footage from the aftermath of the incident showed men, women and children desperately
gasping for air and being hosed down with water by first responders -- a scene that
is often associated with chemical weapons attacks.
But chemical weapons are illegal and have been banned globally since 1925 when the international
community came together and signed a treaty called The Geneva Protocol.
But despite them being banned, It hasn’t prevented some world leaders from using these
brutal weapons against people.
I’m Judah with NowThis World -- and in today’s episode we’re looking back at six world
leaders who have used chemical weapons since the signing of the Geneva Protocol in 1925.
The first use of chemical weapons after they were internationally banned, was by Italy’s
fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after he invaded Ethiopia in 1935.
Mussolini launched an attack on the Ethiopian Empire from its then colony Eritrea, and Italian
Somaliland.
Mussolini was determined to expand his empire at any cost, even if that meant going against
the Geneva Protocol his country signed onto in 1928.
The Italians used chemical weapons, including dropping mustard bombs and spraying mustard
from airplane tanks.
According to the Ethiopian emperor at the time, Haile Selassie, the chemical weapons
killed tens of thousands of people.
The next use happened following Imperial Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, during the Second
Sino-Japanese War.
Japanese Emperor Hirohito reportedly signed off on the use of chemical and biological
weapons against Chinese soldiers and civilians, as he tried to expand his control onto mainland
China.
It’s estimated that Japan conducted between 1,000 to 3,000 attacks, and reportedly produced
5 to 7 million munitions containing chemical agents like hydrogen cyanide and mustard.
There is no official count of how many people died as a result of these chemical weapons,
but an estimated 300,000 people died during the period of this war.
The effects of the use and abandonment of chemical weapons in China, still reverberate
to this day.
After the war, a treaty signed in 1997 stipulated that the Japanese government is responsible
for cleaning up the weapons left behind.
The next case, was Adolf Hitler’s use of chemical gases during World War II beginning
in 1941.
While he didn’t use the banned weapons on the battlefield, he did use them in Nazi concentration
camps to kill prisoners during the Holocaust.
A banned chemical agent known as “Zyklon B” was used in concentration camp facilities
disguised as showers to kill prisoners during Hitler's brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Up to 6 million Jews were murdered in total during the Holocaust.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser also used chemical weapons in Yemen, when Egypt
intervened in the countries civil war in 1963.
The war, known as the North Yemen Civil War, began in 1962 after the death of the country’s
king.
When power was handed down to his son dissidents within the military staged a coup, overthrowing
the monarchy and establishing a republic .
Military forces loyal to the former king retreated to the north of the country and continued
to fight the new republican forces.
Egypt was one of the only regional states that backed the new government in Yemen, as
Nasser attempted to partner with other Arab nationalists.
Under Nasser’s leadership, Egypt used brutal tactics to crackdown on royalist forces.
The nation repeatedly used chemical weapons, including mustard and nerve agents between
1963 to 1967.
The move made him the first Arab leader to use the banned weapons.
The next world leader to use chemical weapons, was Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein -- in at least
two separate occasions.
The first, came during the Iraq-Iran war that began in 1980.
Just months after the war began, Saddam Hussein reportedly used his home-produced chemical
weapons against Iranian forces.
He reportedly used the banned weapons repeatedly against Iran between 1980-1987.
Then in 1988, he aimed his chemical weapons against another group -- Iraqi Kurds.
On March 16th, 1988 -- he dropped chemical weapons, including mustard gas and Sarin,
on the Kurdish town of Halabja.
The attack killed between 3,200 to 5,000 people.
Hussein also used the weapons against the Kurds again during what is known as the “Anfal”
offensive -- which was a 7-month scorched earth campaign where 50,000 to 100,000 Kurds
were killed or disappeared.
Bashar al-Assad would become the next leader to use chemical weapons in August 2013 during
the height of the Syrian civil war.
The attack targeted opposition groups who controlled the town near the country’s capital.
United Nations inspectors confirmed the use of a nerve agent, including Sarin gas in the
attack that reportedly killed nearly 1,500 people.
While a number of governments and international organizations say there is overwhelming evidence
the Syrian government was behind the attack, Assad still denies his government was responsible.
Throughout the Syrians civil war, Assad’s government has been repeatedly accused of
using chemical weapons on opposition strongholds -- most recently
in April 2018.