The bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons and a grandson have been exhumed and reburied near the ousted Iraqi leader’s grave in his hometown north of Baghdad.

The official video of hanging of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants screened for reporters today shows the former leader's half brother lying headless below gallows, his severed head several yards away.

Hours before Saddam Hussein’s execution, the ousted Iraqi leader asked his lawyers not to appeal for his life and accused the United States and Iran of collaborating to hang him, according to a copy of his will.

US troops killed six people today during a raid on a possible safe house for al-Qaida in Iraq, the military said, while the death toll of American service members in Iraq rose above 3,000.

Executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was buried shortly before sunrise today inside a compound for religious ceremonies in the town of his birth.

A delegation that included the governor of Salahuddin Province and the head of Saddam Hussein’s clan has retrieved his body from Baghdad and taken it for burial near the executed dictator’s hometown, Al-Arabiya satellite television reported tonight.

US soldiers detained 14 Iraqis suspected of making deadly car bombs and leading militant cells in northern Iraq, the military said today.

US forces were focusing their attention on Saddam Hussein’s ancestral power base of Tikrit yesterday, after adding the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to a string of rapid-fire battlefield victories.