"He was one of Ouja's most remarkable men," said Abu Shehab, a 45-year-old man who insisted that Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known by his macabre nickname, had been hanged to appease Iran and the United States.

"The execution of Majid was done to satisfy the American and Iranian governments, but he will always be one of the icons of Iraq," Shehab told AFP.

Majid was buried at 10:45 pm (1945 GMT) on Tuesday in the town of Ouja near Tikrit beside six other graves, including those of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, and near the marble tomb of Saddam himself.

He was hanged on Monday for crimes committed during Saddam's reign, serving as one of the dictator's brutal enforcers.

Probably the most notorious of these was the gassing of around 5,000 Kurds in the northern town of Halabja in March 1988, for which he received his fourth death sentence earlier this month.

His crimes, however, did not dilute the adulation of Saddam and Majid loyalists in Ouja, where both men were born in poverty before the fall of the Iraqi monarchy and bloodletting in later years took them to power.

"Majid is a martyr now and he will always be one of the icons of Iraq," said Abu Mohammed, 56.

"The accusations against him were fabricated by the Iranian government," Mohammed said.

Three days of mourning have now commenced and dozens gathered at Majid's tomb on Wednesday, where a Saddam-era Iraqi national flag was placed on the grave.

The present day Iraqi flag does not have the three green stars that accompanied its red, white and black colours and green writing of "Allahu Akbar" (God is greater).

Majid's execution had previously been held up by legal wrangling. The first conviction was due to have been carried out by October 2007 but was delayed so as not to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The hanging was also deferred because it needed approval from Iraq's three-member presidential council.

Judge Abud Mustapha al-Hamani branded Majid's offences at Halabja as "deliberate murder, a crime against humanity" when the verdict was delivered amid muffled applause in the courtroom on January 17.

News of the execution brought hundreds of Kurds out to the streets of Halabja on Tuesday to celebrate the death of the man who had ordered a deadly attack on the town's population of a deadly mix of mustard gas and nerve agents.

"The execution is just and it fills me with a joy that I cannot describe," said Kulala Mohammed, 40, who lost two brothers in the attacks.

"I went to pray at the grave of my brothers and to tell them: 'You can now rest in peace. Your enemy has gone forever and Halabja can be reborn,'" he told AFP.

Aras Abed, vice president of the association of Halabja victims who lost 12 family members, said he was "swimming in happiness."