Saddam's death angers many Arabs, foes rejoice

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, on the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha, would worsen violence in Iraq.

''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 immediate street protests were reported in Arab capitals, where Muslims were preoccupied with the Eid al-Adha holiday.

In Afghanistan, which preceded Iraq as the first target in the US-declared ''war on terror'', a top commander of the resurgent Islamist Taliban movement said Saddam's death 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.

People in Gaza, alerted by text messages or phone calls, hurried home after Eid prayers in mosques to watch the news and to slaughter 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.'' FLAWED JUSTICE 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, arguing that Arabs should not be angry about his death but about US failure to bring democracy, stability and development to Iraq.

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 newspaper, predicted that the former Iraqi president's hanging would spur the insurgency by his fellow Sunnis in Iraq.

''He will become a kind of martyr, and his status as a political figure will increase,'' he said.

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 about 150 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.

Beyond the Arab world, few Muslims seemed ready to defend Saddam, but many doubted that full justice had been done.

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.

Reuters AKJ VV1623