BAGHDAD, Iraq: Oppressed Iraqi nation celebrated after hearing news of the country's former brutal dictator Saddam’s execution Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006.

Saddam, the dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a US-led war that left his country in shambles, was taken to the gallows and executed Saturday.

He murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people both Shiias and Sunnis including grand Maraje, Ayaat, doctors, engineers, lawyers and intellectuals.

Hearing the news, Iraqis danced in the streets while others fired guns in the air to celebrate the execution. The government did not impose a round-the-clock curfew as it did last month when Saddam was convicted to thwart any surge in retaliatory violence.

US President 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."

Saddam was executed at a former military intelligence headquarters in Kazimiyah - home to the holy shrine of Imam Kazim (a.s.).