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BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein was buried before dawn local time today in his native village of Awja, near Tikrit in northern Iraq, the head of his tribe said.
Ali al-Nida, head of the Albu Nasir tribe, told journalists the burial in a family plot took place in the early morning, less than 24 hours after the former president was hanged for crimes against humanity.
It is Muslim practice to bury the dead within the day.
Earlier a family statement had said he would be buried in Ramadi, 110 km west of Baghdad, instead of Awja, due to "private family reasons and the prevailing security situation" in Iraq.
Saddam's sons, Uday and Qusay, were buried in the family shrine at Awja after US troops killed them in mid-2003. Saddam himself was captured nearby at the end of that year.
Defence lawyer Bushra al-Khalil said Saddam's body was flown in a US military aircraft to Tikrit.
Yahya al-Atawi, a senior Sunni Muslim cleric in Tikrit, said from the city 180 km north of Baghdad that Ali al-Nida had received the body.
Saddam's daughter, Raghd, in exile in Jordan, had earlier asked for her father's body to be flown to Yemen for a temporary burial there until it can be transferred back to Iraq for a proper family ceremony.
An adviser to Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had earlier said the government wanted Saddam, 69, to be buried in a secret location in Iraq to prevent the site becoming a place of pilgrimage for rebels.
US troops are on alert for trouble from insurgents among Saddam's Sunni minority.
Brief prayer
Yesterday, his face uncovered, his demeanour calm, Saddam said a brief prayer as Iraqi policemen walked him to the gallows and put a noose around his neck.
After decades of fear, violence and a despotic rule, the end was brief as the former Iraqi leader was hanged at dawn in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.
"It was very quick. He died right away," one of the official Iraqi witnesses told Reuters.
However, the execution did not end the violence in Iraq. Car bombs set off by suspected insurgents from Saddam's once dominant Sunni minority killed over 70 people in Baghdad and near the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, striking areas populated by Shi'ite Muslims oppressed for decades and now in the ascendancy.
President George W. Bush, who branded Saddam a tyrant and a threat to global security even though alleged nuclear and other weapons were not found after the 2003 invasion, hailed the execution as a "milestone" on Iraq's path to democracy, but others - including the UN - condemned the trial which led to his execution.
Bush also said sectarian violence pushing Iraq towards civil war has not ended.
On the same day, the murder of four US troops pushed the American death toll to three short of the emotive 3000 mark. Bush already faces mounting public dismay as Iraq slides towards all-out civil war between Saddam's fellow Sunnis and majority Shiites.
As day broke on one of the holiest dates of the Muslim year - the festival of Eid - and the call to prayer echoed from minarets across a dark and bitterly cold Baghdad, official television channels flashed the news of Saddam's execution shortly after 6am (4pm NZT).
Very calm
"He seemed very calm. He did not tremble," a senior official told Reuters. Saddam, 69, was bound and shackled but his face was not hooded as he met his death.
Saddam recited the Muslim profession of faith: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet", but said nothing else as he was escorted by police to the scaffold.
One source said the execution took place at a facility known to Americans as "Camp Justice" - a former base for Saddam's feared security services and now used by Iraq's courts for executions.
Bush said in a statement: "Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself."
While there were some protests at November's verdict by a US-sponsored court, few Sunnis have deep feelings about Saddam's fate.
An execution at the start of Eid is highly symbolic as it marks the sacrifice Abraham was prepared to make when God ordered him to kill his son, and many Shiites could regard Saddam's death as a gift from God.
Saddam was found guilty over the killing, torture and other crimes against the Shiite population of Dujail after militants tried to assassinate him there in 1982.
Human rights groups criticised the year-long trial, during which three defence lawyers were killed and a chief judge resigned, complaining of political interference. The UN had called on Bush and Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki not to go ahead with the execution.
