IRAQ: Thousands of Iraqis marched through central Baghdad yesterday demanding the execution of former dictator Saddam Hussein and denouncing Islamist militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Noisy protesters waved Iraqi flags, chanted anti-Saddam slogans and held up posters depicting mass graves.
"Let every fool listen, Saddam has to be executed", "No, No to Tikrit," shouted the crowd in reference to Saddam's hometown. Protesters also shouted slogans denouncing the US, Zionism and terrorism.
"Death to Wahabis! Death to Zarqawi!" shouted several hundred people in Baghdad's commercial district, referring to a strict Sunni Muslim sect based in Saudi Arabia.
Zarqawi, the US military's number one target in Iraq with a $25 million bounty on his head, is suspected of being behind many of the most deadly suicide attacks. Protest organisers said they also wanted the government to introduce an annual day of remembrance for victims of Saddam. "It's crucial we don't forget the past," said 50-year-old Mr Jafar Jasim, a member of the National Islamic Independence party, an organiser of the event alongside humanitarian groups.
"We have a specific aim of making sure Saddam is executed. We also want to return Iraqi money to Iraqi hands and demand Syria cleanses its land from terrorists," said Mr Jasim.
An estimated 1,000 protesters also marched against Saddam and for rebel Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern Shia city of Najaf.
"Long live Sadr. Saddam must be executed," they chanted. Sheikh Sadr earlier this year led a two-month uprising against the US-led occupation of Iraq, but has since quietened down.
Demonstrators in Baghdad were determined Saddam should die. Mr Isa al-Musawi, a 63-year-old man carried a picture of his executed son, Fadhil. He said his son was dragged away from a mosque in 1981 and executed. He only found out that his son was dead 22 years later.
He said Saddam should be executed live on television.