Security forces were on alert on Sunday in the Sunni regions of Iraq where Saddam Hussein drew his most fervent support, as loyalists of the ousted dictator marked the first anniversary of his execution.
Police and troops were patrolling the village of Awja, Saddam’s birthplace and where he now lies buried, and in the nearby city of Tikrit in central Iraq, a reporter said.
In Tikrit, where security personnel were ready to monitor any pro-Saddam gatherings, fresh slogans were painted on walls in support of the former president and Sunni leader who was hanged for crimes against humanity.
”We will take revenge for president Saddam Hussein,” read one of the slogans.
Iraqi security officials said they were ready to deal with any civil unrest in the heartland areas of Sunni Iraq north and west of Baghdad, from where most of the senior officials in his regime came.
In northern Baghdad’s strongly Sunni district of Adhamiyah, posters of Saddam were pasted on to walls to mark one year since his execution for the killing of about 140 Shi’ites from the village of Dujail after an attempt on his life there in 1982.
Saddam was hanged at the age of 69 in Baghdad just minutes before the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha began on December 30 last year.
Sunni Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha this year on December 19, when dozens of Saddam’s supporters gathered in Awja to lay flowers on his grave and pay their respects.
During the final minutes of his life, Saddam’s executioners taunted him in scenes at the gallows captured on a cellphone camera, which triggered outrage around the world and embarrassed Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government.
Even United States President George Bush, who hailed Saddam’s capture in December 2003 after the March US-led invasion toppled his regime, sharply criticised the manner of his execution.
In a television interview in January he said the hanging resembled a sectarian ”revenge killing” and had made it harder to end the violence plaguing Iraq.
Iraqi officials ordered that Saddam be buried in the dead of night without the lying in state traditionally accorded to presidents.
The hanging further deepened the rift between Sunnis and Shi’ites that was inflamed by the bombing of a revered Shi’ite shrine by suspected al-Qaeda militants in February last year.
Saddam lies buried near the graves of his sons Uday and Qusay, who were key figures in his regime and were killed in a gun battle with US forces in the main northern city of Mosul in July 2003.
Others close to Saddam await the same fate as their leader, with Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed ”Chemical Ali”, sentenced to die for ordering gas attacks against Kurds in 1988. — AFP
