Saddam Hussein thrown in the garbage of history

Saddam Hussein, among the world's most brutal dictators, struggled briefly as American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners. But as his final moments approached, he grew calm. Dressed in a black coat and trousers, he clutched a Quran as he was led to the gallows, and in one final moment of defiance, refused to have a hood pulled over his head.

Click here to see the photo report of Saddam Hussein's execution

After a quarter-century of remorseless brutality that killed countless thousands and led Iraq into disastrous wars against the United States and Iran, Saddam was executed before sunrise Saturday.

Within hours of his death, a bomb planted aboard a minibus exploded in a fish market south of Baghdad, killing 17 people, said Haidr Nahi, service director of the al-Furat al-Awssat Hospital. Some 26 others were wounded in the explsoion in Kufa, a Shiite town 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the Iraqi capital, the AP says.

A man whose testimony led to Saddam's conviction and execution said he was shown the body because "everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed."

"Now, he is in the garbage of history," said Jawad Abdul-Aziz, who lost his father, three brothers and 222 cousins in the reprisal killings that followed a botched 1982 assassination attempt against Saddam in the Shiite town of Dujail.

In Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, hundreds of people danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate his death. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.

It was a grim end for the 69-year-old leader who had vexed three U.S. presidents. Despite his ouster, Washington, its allies and the new Iraqi leaders remain mired in a fight to quell a stubborn insurgency by Saddam loyalists and a vicious sectarian conflict.

The execution took place during the year's deadliest month for U.S. troops, with the toll reaching 108.

U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice "is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

He said that the execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and cautioned that Saddam's death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

Ali Hamza, a 30-year-old university professor, said he went outside to shoot his gun into the air after he heard the news.

"Now all the victims' families will be happy because Saddam got his just sentence," said Hamza, who lives in Diwaniyah, a Shiite town 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of Baghdad.

But people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a power base of Saddam, lamented his death.

"The president, the leader Saddam Hussein is a martyr and God will put him along with other martyrs. Do not be sad nor complain because he has died the death of a holy warrior," said Sheik Yahya al-Attawi, a cleric at the Saddam Big Mosque.

Police blocked the entrances to Tikrit and said nobody was allowed to leave or enter the city for four days. Despite the security precaution, gunmen took into the street of Tikrit in spite of the curfew carrying picture of Saddam and shooting into the air and calling for vengeance on Saddam's execution.

Security forces also set up roadblocks at the entrance to another Sunni stronghold, Samarra.

Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, were not hanged along with their former leader as originally planned. Officials wanted to reserve the occasion for Saddam alone.

We wanted him to be executed on a special day," National Security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told state-run Iraqiya TV.

Sami al-Askari, the political adviser of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, provided The Associated Press with some details of his handover to Iraqi authorities and his execution. He said Saddam initially resisted when he was taken by Iraqi guards but was composed in his final moments.

He said Saddam was clad in a black suit, hat and shoes, rather than prison garb. His hat was removed shortly before the noose was slipped around his neck.

Shortly before the execution, Saddam was asked if he wanted to say something.

"No I don't want to," al-Askari, who was present at the execution, quoted Saddam as saying. Saddam repeated a prayer after a Sunni Muslim cleric who was present.

"Saddam later was taken to the gallows and refused to have his head covered with a hood," al-Askari said. "Before the rope was put around his neck, Saddam shouted: 'God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab."'

Iraqi state television showed footage of guards in ski masks placing a noose around Saddam's neck. Saddam appears calm as he stands on the metal framework of the gallows. The footage cuts off just before the execution.