Saddam death angers many Arabs, foes feel cheated

BEIRUT, Dec 30 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein's execution today angered many Arabs, but even some who felt the former Iraqi leader deserved to die voiced a sense of justice denied.

Many said his hanging for crimes against humanity was provocatively timed to coincide with the Muslim Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) and would worsen violence in Iraq.

The drama of Saddam's violent end was brought into living rooms across the Arab world with television pictures of masked hangmen tightening the noose around his neck. Separate film of Saddam's body in a white shroud also upset many viewers.

''This is the worst Eid ever witnessed by Muslims. I had goosebumps when I saw the footage,'' said Jordanian woman Rana Abdullah, 30, who works in the private sector.

Libya, the only state to show solidarity with Saddam in his death, declared three days of mourning and cancelled public Eid celebrations. Flags on government buildings flew at half-mast.

''I don't have any sorrow or compassion for the man, but the timing is very stupid and Muslims will think this was done to provoke their feelings,'' said Ehab Abdel-Hamid, 30, a novelist and senior editor at Cairo's independent al-Dostour newspaper.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, told Al Jazeera television: ''Arab public opinion wonders who deserves to be tried and executed: Saddam Hussein who preserved the unity of Iraq, its Arab and Islamic identity and the coexistence of its different communities such as Shi'ites and Sunnis ... or those who engulfed the country in this bloody civil war?'' No street unrest was reported in Arab capitals, where Muslims were preoccupied with the Eid al-Adha holiday, but thousands of Indians, mostly Muslims, staged anti-US protests.

Tajeddine El Husseini, a Moroccan international economic law professor, said Saddam's ''symbolic sacrifice'' on a religious day when Muslims slaughter animals would make things worse.

''There is the risk that Baathist elements could strike US interests even outside Iraq,'' he said.

TALIBAN SEE BOOST FOR JIHAD In Afghanistan, which preceded Iraq as the first target in the US-declared ''war on terror'', a commander of the resurgent Islamist Taliban movement said Saddam's demise would galvanise Muslim opposition to the United States.

''His death will boost the morale of Muslims. The jihad in Iraq will be intensified and attacks on invader forces will increase,'' Mullah Obaidullah Akhund told Reuters by telephone.

News of Saddam's death shocked Palestinians, many of whom had seen him as an Arab hero for his missile attacks on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War that ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

''The Americans wanted to tell all Arab leaders who are their servants that they are like Saddam, nothing but a sheep slaughtered on Eid,'' said Abu Mohammad Salama at a Gaza mosque.

Hamas lawmaker Mushir al-Masri said Saddam's execution was a ''proof of the criminal and terrorist American policy and its war against all forces of resistance in the world''.

In Kuwait, where Saddam is reviled for his 1990 invasion, Ahmed al-Shatti, a Health Ministry official, said the Iraqi leader was a criminal whose trial had been incomplete.

''He did not answer for the crime of occupying Kuwait and the atrocities he committed in Kuwait,'' Shatti said.

In Shi'ite non-Arab Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Hamid Reza Asefi said the hanging of the man who led Iraq into a costly war with the Islamic Republic in the 1980s was a victory for Iraqis.

But Yousef Molaee, an Iranian international law expert, took the view that the dawn execution was a failure for justice.

''Saddam's crimes in the eight-year war against Iran, such as chemical bombardments, remained unanswered because of the hasty and unfair trial,'' state news agency IRNA quoted him as saying.

In Mecca, Sunni Arab pilgrims voiced outrage that Iraqi authorities had executed Saddam on a major religious holiday.

''His execution on the day of Eid...is an insult to all Muslims,'' said Jordanian pilgrim Nidal Mohammad Salah.

Ahmed Al Mudaweb, a political editor at Bahrain's Al Watan daily, said the former president's hanging would give him martyr status and spur the insurgency by his fellow Sunnis in Iraq.

Khalaf al-Alayan, a Sunni Iraqi lawmaker, told Al Jazeera from Jordan: ''This was an act of vengeance against Iraq.'' Jordanians, once fervently pro-Saddam, said his execution for the 1982 killings of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites, was incongruous.

''He surely wasn't the only tyrant in the world. The irony is he was tried and hanged for a small crime when he committed worse,'' said Aline Saeed, a marketing director.

Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's strongest opposition group, said Saddam had been judged by an Iraqi government that was not fully sovereign.

''His execution will have grave consequences and will deepen the ethnic and sectarian violence in Iraq,'' he said.

REUTERS AKJ BD1942