Dec. 30, 2006
 
BREAKING NEWS: Saddam Hussein Executed by Hanging
 
By HNN Staff, from Broadcast and Print News Sources
 
Saddam Hussein, 69, was executed by hanging at dawn on Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006 in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.
 
The former Iraqi dictator was hanged for ordering the murders of 148 of his countrymen 24 years ago, three Iraqi television networks reported. The Iraqi Special Tribunal convicted Saddam and two co-defendants on Nov. 5, 2006, charging that they ordered the execution of 148 people after an unsuccessful assassination attempt against the Saddam in Dujail in 1982. Earlier this month, in a brief session, an appeals court upheld the conviction, and under Iraqi law, Saddam had to be executed within 30 days.
 
Hussein’s execution occurred at about 6 a.m. local time, the state-owned Al Iraqiya and two other stations reported. Two aides dictator had also been also sentenced to death -- Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim, the former head of intelligence, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court.
 
Though he was never an army officer, Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, frequently wore military uniforms and brandished weapons. He led his nation into three devastating wars – the first with Iran in the 1980s – while pursuing his goal of dominating the Arab world.
 
News reports from the Detroit, MI metropolitan area, home of the nation’s largest concentration of Arab-Americans, said most of the residents celebrated the death of the man who ruled Iraq for more than 35 years.
 
The Detroit Free Press reported that a crowd of Iraqi-Americans cheered and cried late Friday outside a Dearborn, MI. mosque as some Arab media reported that Saddam Hussein was executed.
 
The crowd of more than 150 had gathered earlier in anticipation of Saddam's execution, praying for the death of the former Iraqi dictator as people honked car horns, sang and danced in celebration, according to the newspaper
 
Chants of "Now there's peace, Saddam is dead" in English and Arabic rang into the night in this Detroit suburb.
 
Imam Husham Al-Husainy, the director of the center, said members of the center prayed for Saddam's death. Outside, traffic slowed as people drove in circles around the mosque, honking horns and flashing peace signs, the newspaper reported.