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Saddam Hussein, among the world’s most brutal dictators, struggled briefly after American military guards handed him over to Iraqi executioners. But as his final moments approached, he grew calm. Dressed in a black coat and trousers, he clutched a Qur’an as he was led to the gallows, and in one final moment of defiance, refused to have a hood pulled over his head.

After a quarter-century of remorseless brutality that killed countless thousands and led Iraq into disastrous wars against the United States and Iran, Saddam was executed before sunrise Saturday.

Within hours of his death, a bomb planted aboard a minibus exploded in a fish market south of Baghdad, killing 31 people, said Haidr Nahi, service director of the al-Furat al-Awssat Hospital. About 58 others were wounded in the explosion in Kufa, a Shiite town 160 kilometres south of the Iraqi capital.

A man whose testimony led to Saddam’s conviction and execution said he was shown the body because “everybody wanted to make sure that he was really executed.”

U.S. President George W. Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas that bringing Saddam to justice “is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror.”

He said that the execution marks the “end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops” and cautioned that Saddam’s death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

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