Special report: Execution of Saddam Hussein

Armed Arab Sunni militants hold up their weapons during a protest in Al-Dawr, close to Saddam's home village of Awja.  (Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery >>>

A frame grab from Al Iraqiya television shows masked executioners placing a noose around toppled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's neck moments before his hanging in Baghdad Dec. 30, 2006. (Xinhua Photo/AFP) Photo Gallery >>>

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    BAGHDAD, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of people pour into former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit from Tuesday morning as unofficial footage of his hanging sparked anger among Iraqis, mostly Sunnis.

    In order to calm the anger, the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Tuesday ordered an inquiry about the unofficial footage.

    However, the angry people walked through the Tikrit streets carrying posters of Saddam's image, chanting slogans condemning the government and the Americans, local witnesses told Xinhua.

    Meanwhile, hundreds of others gathered in the nearby Awja town where Saddam was buried privately on Sunday at a hall built during his regime for organizing condolence meetings.

    During the demonstrations some gunmen sporadically fired in the air as the protestors demanded that Saddam's execution be avenged, witnesses said.

    "It is a mistake... the chants during Saddam execution, and the timing of the execution on the day of the festival Eid al-Adha (Greater Bairam) is not wise," Mahmoud Uthman, a politician from the Kurdish parliament bloc told reporters.

    Saddam's execution took place at dawn Saturday at an Iraqi army base in Kadhimiya, once was Saddam's main military intelligence headquarters.

    On Nov. 5, a panel of five Iraqi judges sentenced Saddam, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Ahmed al-Bandar to death by hanging for the killing of 148 people in Dujail, some 60 km north of Baghdad after a failed assassination attempt in 1982.

    Both Tikriti and Bandar are to be hanged after the four-day Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, or Greater Bairam, officials said.

    The execution was secretly filmed, obviously filmed with a mobile phone, and distributed.

    The two-and-a-half minute film was first broadcast by the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV channel on Sunday and widely circulated on the internet.

    In the film, Saddam was seen taunted by Shiite witnesses at the very last moments of his life, including one who shouted the name of a radical Shiite cleric --"Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada."

    Saddam was also seen sneeringly smiled at those taunting him from below the gallows and responded "is that the manhood you have." Then he began reciting the Shahada, a Muslim prayer in the footage.

    The footage ends with Saddam falling though the trapdoor of the gallows and dying amid shouts from the crowd. A close up shows his head lolling to one side in the noose as he swung from the rope after his neck broken.

    The footage is more graphic than a brief clip released on state television which was cut off when he was noosed by the guards.

    The more grisly clip aroused anger among Sunnis inside and outside Iraq as many said the execution showed the execution was a sectarian revenge instead of an act of law.

    Analysts said the Sunni Arab used the footage to prove that Shiite militia, namely Mehdi Army, have infiltrated the security forces.

    On the other hand, the Shiite would say the footage did not show much ill treatment for Saddam as he did worse for them during his era, analysts said.

    In fact, Saddam's hanging has sparked anger in Iraq's Sunni provinces and many mourners arrived in Tikrit and Awja town from Anbar, Diyala and Mosul.

    The Iraqi government ordered an inquiry about an unofficial footage of the execution of Saddam Hussein, an official close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday.

    "We have launched an investigation into who secretly filmed the execution and distributed it," the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Iraqis watch video footage of the execution of ousted leader Saddam Hussein on a mobile phone at a shop in Baghdad. Iraq  (Xinhua/AFP Photo) Photo Gallery >>>