Amiriyah shelter bombing

Amiriyah shelter bombing
Part of the Gulf War
Interior of the shelter, currently maintained as a memorial to the bombing
TypeAirstrike
Location
33°17′50″N 44°16′50″E / 33.29722°N 44.28056°E / 33.29722; 44.28056
DateFebruary 13, 1991 (1991-02-13)
Executed byUnited States Air Force United States Air Force
Casualties408+ killed
Unknown injured
Al-A'amiriya is located in Iraq
Al-A'amiriya
Al-A'amiriya
Location of Al-A'amiriya within Iraq

The Amiriyah shelter bombing[N 1] was an aerial bombing attack that killed at least 408 civilians on 13 February 1991 during the Gulf War, when an air-raid shelter ("Public Shelter No. 25") in the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, was destroyed by the U.S. Air Force with two GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided "smart bombs".[1][2] Human Rights Watch characterised the bombing as a war crime.[3]

The U.S. Department of Defense stated that they "knew the [Amiriyah] facility had been used as a civil-defense shelter during the Iran–Iraq War",[3] while the U.S. military stated they believed the shelter was no longer a civil defense shelter and that they thought it had been converted to a command center or a military personnel bunker.


Cite error: There are <ref group=N> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=N}} template (see the help page).

  1. ^ Jeenah, Na'eem (July 2001). "Al-Amariyah - A Graveyard of unwilling martyrs". Archived from the original on 28 January 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2009.
  2. ^ https://archive.org/details/firethistimeuswa00clar U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, The Fire This Time, U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf, 1992
  3. ^ a b "Needless Deaths In The Gulf War: Civilian Casualties During the Air Campaign and Violations of the Laws of War". Human Rights Watch. 1991.