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Baghdad, Dec 30: According to agency reports, former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein has been executed in Baghdad.

Saddam was convicted for the Dujail killings and held responsible for the death of 148 Shias after an assassination attempt on his life in the 80s.

Saddam was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on November 5. He was in US custody since he was captured on December 13, 2004. He was executed at an undisclosed location in Baghdad a few minutes before 6:00 am (local time). His execution comes a couple of hours ahead of the beginning of the religious Bakra id festival.

Security has been put on high alert since news of the impending execution in Iraq. All American embassies are on high security alert for any possible terror strikes.

The Green Zone in Iraq has been fortified as an escalation in violence is expected following the execution. "This would deepen the anti-Americanism in the Arab world. It will widen the Shia-Sunni divide. The civil war will continue and lets hope it does not spill out to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia," said G Parthasarthy, former diplomat.

"I think the Arab league will be divided. It was unfair. There will be a reaction as the execution has been done on the wrong day. It is bad timing and a politically motivated move," added Dr WSH Awwad, Senior journalist.

Religious holiday

Iraq's Prime Minister had earlier said that there will be no reprieve for Saddam Hussein. He also added that he wanted to see the former leader hanged before the end of the year.

"I received an urgent phone call from the American side saying I should send someone to pick up the belongings of the leader Saddam Hussein and Barzan Tikriti and we agreed on that. The issue of whether the leader Saddam Hussein was handed over (to the Iraqi government) or not is still not confirmed to us but everything is possible in this state of anarchy and American democracy," said Khalil Dulaimi, Saddam Hussein's Chief Lawyer.

The former Iraqi leader had been in US military custody at Camp Cropper in Baghdad. Saddam's two half brothers visited him in a rare prison meeting earlier and the 69-year-old former Iraqi President reportedly handed over his will.

He was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on November 5 after a year-long trial over the killings of 148 Shias from the village of Dujail in the 1980s.

Middle East icon

Hussein is an icon for millions across the world but toppled in his own home within just a few weeks of the US invasion into Iraq. It was a proof of how hollow his claims that the entire people of Iraq backed him. Saddam after all had won a ludicrous 99 per cent vote in the last Presidential elections in 2002.

Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979. In his initial years he was seen both at home and in the West as a progressive ruler who opposed fundamentalism and supported democratic reform. He called for democratic elections in 1980, the first in 22 years, which was followed by a short period of stability.

Saddam's image was that of a benevolent ruler who liked to be among his people and soldiers and sometimes give protocol a go by and have some fun.

On the other side was the eight-year war with Iran that took a million lives and cost $900 million dollars. The war turned Saddam increasingly into a dictator who withdrew behind a military shell.

All opposition was crushed with an iron hand and sometimes with deadly chemicals as in the case of the Kurds. But all this time he was backed actively by America, which saw him as the best bet against a fundamentalist Iran.

Saddam finally signed a peace treaty with Iran in 1988 but the war had taken its toll on the economy and Iraq was forced to raised oil prices inviting anger from the western world specially the US.

Military misadventure

In August 1990 Saddam tried to takeover his oil-rich neighbor Kuwait and that was the final breaking point with the US. Saddam's troops were routed in the first Gulf war in 1991 but the man could not be dislodged for over a decade.

Crippling economic sanctions against Iraq made his hold over the country increasingly difficult.

And when George W Bush junior made grabbing him a prestige issue after the attacks in New York in 2001 it wasn't all that difficult getting him. He had been in US custody ever since his dramatic capture in a tiny holed up bunker at the end of 2003.

Since then the violence has only intensified. The trial - and the verdict - for atrocities against the Shiites in Dujail reinforcing the divisions between Shias and Sunnis in the country.

Many fear the legacy for the generation after Saddam is an ugly one the roots of an imminent civil war have only deepened.