Saddam's death angers many Arabs, but foes rejoice

BEIRUT, Dec 30 (Reuters) Saddam Hussein's execution today angered many Arabs and Muslims. Even some who felt the former Iraqi leader deserved to die questioned the justice of his trial. Many said his death would worsen violence in Iraq.

''The timing of this execution (during the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha) is an affront to all Arabs and Muslims,'' Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, told Al Jazeera television. ''It is an act of scorn against a great religion by the United States and the Iraqi government.

''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 into this bloody civil war,'' he said. News of Saddam's hanging at dawn for crimes against humanity shocked Palestinians, many of whom had seen the Iraqi strongman as an Arab hero for his missile attacks on Israel during the 1991 Gulf War that ended Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

People in Gaza, alerted by text messages or phone calls, hurried home after Eid prayers in mosques to watch the news and to slaughter their sheep for the traditional Muslim feast.

''What is he (Saddam), a sheep? I think the Americans wanted to tell all Arab leaders who are their servants that they are like Saddam, nothing but a sheep slaughtered on the day of Eid,'' said a worshipper called Abu Mohammad Salama.

Mushir al-Masri, a lawmaker of the governing Islamist Hamas movement, said: ''The execution of President Saddam Hussein was a proof of the criminal and terrorist American policy and its war against all forces of resistance in the world.'' But Shi'ite Iran rejoiced at the hanging of the man who led his country into war with the Islamic Republic in the 1980s.

''The people of Iraq are the victor in the issue of Saddam's hanging, just as they were the main victor in his fall,'' Hamid Reza Asefi, Deputy Foreign Minister in parliamentary affairs, was quoted by the official Iranian news agency IRNA as saying.

DISBELIEF AMONG PILGRIMS In Mecca, the focal point of the Muslim haj pilgrimage, Nawaf al-Harbi, a Saudi national, said: ''I don't want to believe it.

Saddam cannot die. Is this the good news we get on our Eid?'' Abu Mostafa, a Syrian who was also standing outside the Grand Mosque in Mecca, said: ''This is unbelievable. Things will not improve in Iraq now that Saddam is dead. There will be more violence and more Arab anger towards the West.'' Ahmed Al Mudaweb, a political editor at Bahrain's Al Watan newspaper, predicted that Saddam's hanging would spur the insurgency by his fellow Sunni Muslims in Iraq.

''This will result in more division among Iraqis. It will help Saddam's supporters in their campaign of violence,'' he said. ''He will become a kind of martyr, and his status as a political figure will increase.'' Khalaf al-Alayan, a Sunni member of Iraq's parliament, told Al Jazeera from Jordan: ''This was an act of vengeance against Iraq ...

and a great humanitarian crime against the Iraqi people and a prisoner of war held by the United States.'' Beyond the Arab world, few Muslims seemed ready to defend Saddam, but many doubted that full justice had been done.

''The punishment should have been given to Saddam, because Saddam killed many Iraqi people and also members of Hizb ut-Tahrir there,'' said Ismail Yusanto, spokesman of the Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir in Indonesia.

But he said US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair deserved no better. ''All leaders in the world who did killings have to get the same punishment.'' In Pakistan, Liaqat Baluch, a leader of a six-party opposition alliance of conservative religious parties, said Saddam was a ''bad guy'' but his trial had been unfair.

''This will further increase hatred of America. No one liked or supported Saddam Hussein here, but the way he was tried was improper and unjust.'' Americans convicted of killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan should be treated the same way, he said.

In Kuala Lumpur, Rhiza Ghazi, a 31-year old Malaysian lawyer, said Saddam had ''got what he deserved after all the suffering people had to go through under his rule''.

An African pilgrim in Mecca, Mohammed Fofana from Mali, 25, welcomed Saddam's death. ''I saw on TV how he had killed so many people. A man like that should not be allowed to stay alive.'' REUTERS AD KN1341