By Mariam Karouny

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein was hanged for crimes against humanity at dawn on Saturday, a dramatic, violent end for a leader who ruled Iraq by fear for three decades before a U.S. invasion toppled him.

"It was very quick. He died right away," one of the official Iraqi witnesses told Reuters, saying the former president's face was uncovered, he appeared calm and said a brief prayer as Iraqi policemen walked him to the gallows and put the noose round him.

President Bush, who branded Saddam a tyrant and a threat to global security even though alleged nuclear and other weapons were not found after the 2003 invasion, hailed the execution as a "milestone" on Iraq's path to democracy.


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The deaths of four troops pushed the American death toll to three short of the emotive 3,000 mark. Bush already faces mounting public dismay at the war as Iraq slides toward all-out civil war between Saddam's fellow Sunnis and majority Shi'ites.

As day broke on one of the holiest dates of the Muslim year and the call to prayer echoed out from minarets across a dark and bitterly cold Baghdad, officially backed television channels flashed the news shortly after 6 a.m. (0300 GMT).

"He seemed very calm. He did not tremble," a senior official present at the execution told Reuters. Saddam, 69, was bound and shackled but his face was uncovered as he met his death.

The former president recited the Muslim profession of faith "There is no God but God and Mohammed is his prophet" but made no other remark after policemen escorted him to the scaffold.
The official would not say where the execution took place but said it was not in the fortified Green Zone compound. Another said it was at a facility known to Americans as "Camp Justice" -- a former base for Saddam's feared security services and now used regularly for executions by Iraqi's courts.

National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told state television Saddam seemed to him "a broken man" on the gallows.

He and other officials denied a statement read out earlier on state television that said Saddam's half-brother and a former judge were also hanged. The senior official said Barzan al- Tikriti and Awad al-Bander, convicted with Saddam last month, would be executed after the week long Eid al-Adha holiday.

BUSH HAILS "MILESTONE"


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"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself," Bush said in a statement.

Saddam's appeal was rejected four days ago and the rapid execution will delight Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ites, who were oppressed under Saddam, but may anger Saddam's resentful Sunni minority, as well as some Kurds who were hoping to see him convicted of genocide against them.

"The timing of the execution and the sudden way it has been done may irritate people," Saleem al-Jibouri, a spokesman for the main Sunni party in the national unity government, said.

The start of the week-long Eid al-Adha holiday at noon, coinciding with the haj pilgrimage to Mecca, had seemed it might cause a delay in the execution before a late-night meeting between Maliki and U.S. officials agreed the final procedures
Saddam's daughter Raghd, in Jordan, "is asking that his body be buried in Yemen temporarily until Iraq is liberated and it can be reburied in Iraq," a source close to the family said.

One senior Iraqi official said the family could claim the body. It might also be sent to Saddam's home town of Tikrit, where the governor had declared a four-day curfew.

Seeking an 11th hour reprieve, defense lawyers asked a U.S. federal court to order a halt to the execution because Saddam is a defendant in a civil case in Washington. But a U.S. judge denied the move, saying Saddam was not being held in U.S. custody and as a result her court lacked jurisdiction.

U.S. troops are on alert for trouble from insurgents among Saddam's Sunni minority. While there were some protests at November's verdict by a U.S.-sponsored court, few Sunnis have deep feelings about the fate of the fallen strongman.


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An execution at the start of Eid is highly symbolic. The feast marks the sacrifice the prophet Abraham was prepared to make when God ordered him to kill his son and many Shi'ites could regard Saddam's death as a gift from God. Such symbolism could further anger Sunnis, resentful of new Shi'ite power.

Saddam was found guilty over the killing, torture and other crimes against the Shi'ite population of the town of Dujail after Shi'ite militants tried to assassinate him there in 1982.

Saddam, who said in court he had no fear of dying, had a farewell meeting with two of his half-brothers on Thursday, his lawyers said, adding the fallen dictator was in high spirits.

International human rights groups criticized the year-long trial, during which three defense lawyers were killed and a chief judge resigned complaining of political interference.

The United Nations and many of Washington's Western allies called on Bush and Maliki not to go ahead with the execution.

i think that sadam execution is not a right decision and that crisis happened on a holy day of eid.ul.uzha.
And as the USAMA BIN LADIN said that now america will face more attacks.. The americans should give him the punishment of life time prison. But death is not solution of some thing but it creats more difficulties...
A lot of time before USAMA BIN LADIN said:::::
:::AMERICANS ARE AFRAID OF DEATH AND WE LIKE DEATH AND THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN US:::::

And on the historical day of eid we have lost an other brave musalman:::
SADAM HUSSAINNNNN

BY:::HASEEB.M.SHAH
HASEEB_SHAH123@YAHOO.COM

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KEEP SMILING

HASEEB,

You are right. Bush and Tony are afraid of SADAM.

The triel was not fair and they never give enough time to SADAM, even the court rejected his appeal just three days earlier.

On Eid-al-Adha means sacrifice, we (The Muslims) slaughter animals and they use the ideology for them. This will also increase sectarian violance and there might be GENOCIDE of SUNNI by SHIA or something like that will increase.

US did that because their casulties are on the rise and they wanted to daviate the attention of general public from that to other issue and tried to increase internal conflict and divide of IRAQ.

They did this because no government took agressive stance on that, that gave them liberty/freedom to do so. (Not even muslim countries)
We can pray for MUSLIMS unity and strength.

Thanks

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by
AA

"It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness".
"Achieve excellence to become a dear or dire of the world"
"Failure is the world, don't known to me"

Aftab Here,

I m of the view that evil powers had no right to hang saddam,but its a hard fact to assimilate that no muslim leader had dared to teach saddam a lesson of his evil doings,therefore my friends we need to think on sound and equal grounds so that the world and specifically our beloved country could be the sign of our reflections.


Thnx

Sadam's Execution shows that

How the powerless Muslim Leaders are...
On the EID Day they can't stop the muslim Leader to be hanged...

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.( ' ,' )
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_____Salam!!!

For muslims it is the order of day to be united . Every muslim knows division of shia and sunni will harm islam but still we are keeping continue to divide each other and if this continue then there will be the list of people like saddam which will be hanged till muslim world wake up.
In this discussion forum in some other thread i read about the killings of shias which saddam comited in Dujen 1982.
Well saddam was socialist politician and great arab nationalist after gaddafi and jamal nasir. In his whole life he did politics of arab nationals and socialism . He reforms iraq in his early days of Govt:. But now .... when he is not among us he is dead ... and now we are calling him as sectarian saddam and blame over him is "He killed shias". he never call him self like sunni or shia .Like Some one from Deoband school of thought asked jinnah "are you shia?" then jinnah only stared at him and did not answered./
I think this si also joke of history with saddam that when he died he was named as secterian and religious .but he lived his life as nationalist.

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جيسين سر ۾ ساھ اٿم تيسين اَزادي تي ويساھ اٿم..

ھڪ سر جو سيد وارث اَ ٻيو وارث بھٽ جو شاھ اٿم..

Saddam's execution on the Holy Day of Eid-e-Baqar that was against the rules of Iraq, is a slap on the face of Muslim Ummah, this act strongly depicts the devastating weekness of Muslim World and sole hegemony of US-rule. Damn farangi had turned Saddam, a brutal dictator, into a legend which he didn't deserve to be. I'm now anticipating terrible outcomes of this execution in the form of further trubulence in Shia-Sunni sects, further, the establishment of a non-Arab Kurd state that shall be soon ratafied by USA would create great disturbance and complications in Middle East.

ALLAH REHAM KARAY.

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Farangi teyra chehra do rangi,,,A'ankhein roshan dil zangi.