Western Asia

United States deliberately pursues policy of destroying Iraq’s water systems through sanctions and withholding contracts.

Four water project employees are kidnapped by assailants dressed as police officers. The outcome of the kidnapping is unknown and no group has claimed responsibility for the incident.

In less than a week, several water projects are the targets of explosives, killing six employees of one of the water projects and damaging the infrastructure in Al-Shirqat District, Saladin Governorate, and Mushirfah, Nineveh Governorate, Iraq.

At least two people die from a blast at a water purification plant in the city of Fallujah, in Al Anbar Province. More than 20 people are hospitalized from chlorine poisoning from the destruction of a water-purification chemical storage facility.

Israel destroys irrigation ditches in the lower Tarfiq in the demilitarized zone. Syria complains.

Headwaters of the Dan River on the Jordan River are bombed at Tell El-Qadi in a dispute about sovereignty over the source of the Dan.

First attack ever by the Palestinian National Liberation Movement Al-Fatah is on the diversion pumps for the Israeli National Water Carrier. Attack fails.

Israeli settlers from Efrat are blamed for deliberately releasing sewer water into Palestinian agricultural fields in the West Bank.

Potassium cyanide is discovered in lethal quantities in the water supply of a Turkish air force base. No one is poisoned prior to the discovery. The attack is attributed to the Kurdish Workers’ Party.

A man is arrested for attempted poisoning of the water supply for the village of Kurusaray, Turkey.