Incredulity, joy, anger in Iraq at Saddam hanging

"Scarcely able to believe the pictures of Saddam Hussein on the gallows, Iraqi Kurds and Shi'ites said he had received a dose of his own medicine when he was hanged on Saturday.

But for many of the former president's fellow Sunni Arabs, it was a sombre day.

'What happened today is unbelievable, it's a great joy that I can't even express,' said Mohammad Kadhim, a 30-year-old journalist in the Shi'ite city of Basra in southern Iraq.

'I can't believe what I'm seeing on television -- Saddam led to the gallows where he hanged tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis by the same method,' Kadhim said.

Popular reactions were fairly muted as Iraqis woke on the holiest day of the Muslim calendar to begin a week of religious holidays for Eid al-Adha. Unlike at previous times of tension, no curfew was imposed on Baghdad after the execution." Reuters