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1631T-HQ-1462938 including the family of KAMAL HAJI KHIDR AGHA, the commander of the 12th [PUK] division. Temporary blindness is a common side-effect of a chemical attack. HRW interviewed KAMAL AGHA in March, 1993, who confirmed that he and his family had been temporarily blinded in a chemical attack on May 27, 1987. On May 26, i987,[ | was part of a Peshmerga group that arrived_in the Malakan Valley. In the late afternoon of May 26th, 1987,[ _| witnessed a MIG-25 flying slowly over the Malakan Valley. Approximately five or six miles long, the Malakan Valley was home to t jliages of Malakan, Talinan, Bila-Zohri, and Bila-Zehri. en ee the airplan taking surveillance photographs for an upcoming attack. later learned from an Iraqi deserter that it was common for the Iraqi Air Force to send a MIG-25 to an area that it planned to attack. The MIG-25 would fly to the area of interest to take pictures of the villages and areas where people lived. The next day, the area would be attacked with chemical weapons. as[___lana his group prepared to depart Malakan shortly after 6 a.m. on May 27, 1987, Iraqi government forces attacked the top of the Malakan Valley with chemical weapons. A be spring at the top of the valley which was the villages' water bic source channeled the heavy chemical gas through the valley and down towards the villages. Believing the attack was part of a larger operation that might include an attack on the Balisan Valley, HASSAN SHUSTANI, the PUK Third Malaband Commander, ordered his group of Pershmergas to leave immediately for Balisan. On the way out of Malakan which is on the north side of the valley, the group had to head down into the valley and through the gas. However, no one in GOZEH's group was severely effected by the chemical gases. The villagers in the area were left to deal with the chemical attack themselves. believed this attack was in retaliation for an entire Jahsh regiment's (Kurdish pro-regime militia) recent def jon and relocation to the Malakan Valley. According to a total of fifteen died from the chemical attack, four of whom were members of the defected Jahsh regiment. [ interview, February 3, 2005]. June 6, 1987 Chemical Attack on the Zewa Valle A handwritten note by the Director of Sh3 (DMI) dated 26