Saddam Hussein's former vice president was hanged for crimes against humanity early on Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein from power.
Former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan was the third of Saddam's top aides to be hanged since the ex-president was executed in December after a trial in US-backed Iraqi tribunal that was criticised by human rights groups as unfair.
The executions have done nothing to subdue violence that has engulfed Iraq since 2003 and many in Iraq say they have exacerbated sectarian fighting that now borders on civil war.
Witnesses said Ramadan's body, wrapped in an Iraqi flag, was received as a "martyr" by hundreds of people in the northern town of Awja. Gunmen fired shots in the air to honour him. He was buried near Saddam's sons and two aides hanged earlier this year, Awad al Bander and Barzan al-Tikriti, outside the hall housing Saddam's tomb, as requested in his will.
ANOTHER TWO NEWSMEN KILLED Another two journalists have been killed and two media workers are missing in Iraq, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Tuesday.
The body of Hamid al-Duleimi, 37, a producer for television channel Al-Nahrain was found in a Baghdad morgue on Monday after he was abducted two days earlier as he left the channel's studios, a statement said. Two other employees of the channel were killed in May 2006 after being stopped at a fake military roadblock in the Iraqi capital," RSF said.
The statement said the editor of the daily As-Safir, Hussein al-Jaburi, 63, died from his injuries in a hospital last Friday in Amman, where he was taken for treatment after being ambushed outside his Baghdad home on February 11.
IRAQI FORCES KILL 39 TERRORISTS Iraqi security forces killed 39 "terrorists" in a fierce battle in the western Sunni province of Al-Anbar on Tuesday, a top Iraqi official told AFP.
Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf, director of the operations centre in the interior ministry, said seven other militants were arrested, including some Arab nationals. The clashes broke out early Tuesday in Ameriyah, south-west of the former rebel town of Fallujah and the site of a recent chlorine gas attack.
Khalaf said security forces supported by paramilitary units formed by Sunni tribes fought the militants in a battle that lasted several hours. Two top militants, Shakir Hadi Jassim and Mohammed Khamis, were among the dead. About 25 Sunni tribes from Anbar have formed an coalition - Anbar Awakening - to take on the militants, largely from the al Qaeda network, who are operating in the western province.
These tribes have been sending thousands of young men to join the government security forces or their paramilitary units to co-operate with US and Iraqi commanders to fight insurgents.
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