Dozens of Sunni Arab tribal leaders, clerics and students stood at Saddam's burial site in his birthplace of Awja in central Iraq, and read verses from the Koran, an AFP reporter said.

"We will observe this day every year as Saddam is in our hearts," said Ghalib Hammudi, a relative of the former president who was hanged for crimes against humanity on December 30, 2006.

Iraqi security officials had said they would deal with any unrest in the Sunni heartland north and west of Baghdad, although the US military said no violence associated with the date had been reported.

Ali al-Nida, chief of the Baijat tribe to which Saddam belonged, said the followers of the Sunni leader held a simple ceremony in Awja to remember him for his role in "maintaining the dignity" of the Iraqi people.

Several posters of Saddam were posted in the village, while loudspeakers played verses from the Koran. Civilian volunteers guarded the hall which houses Saddam's grave, and police and troops patrolled outside.

In the former dictator's onetime powerbase of Tikrit, walls were painted with fresh slogans paying tribute to him. "We will take revenge for president Saddam Hussein," read one.

The village of Dawr, just south of Tikrit where Saddam was captured hiding in a hole by US forces in December 2003, was under indefinite curfew, an AFP correspondent reported.

Posters of Saddam also appeared overnight on walls in Baghdad's strongly Sunni district of Adhamiyah in the north of the capital.

At the gallows, Saddam's executioners taunted him in scenes that were captured on a mobile phone camera, triggering outrage around the world and embarrassing Iraq's Shiite-led government.

Even US President George W. Bush, who hailed Saddam's capture after the US-led invasion toppled his regime in April 2003, said the execution resembled sectarian "revenge killing."

Iraqi officials ordered that Saddam be buried at night without the lying in state traditionally accorded to presidents.

The hanging further deepened the rift between Sunnis and Shiites that was inflamed by the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine by suspected Al-Qaeda militants in February last year.

Shiites, who suffered under Saddam's Sunni regime and who now lead the government, celebrated on Sunday.

Haider al-Jabiri, a member of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's office, said: "We are happy today because it was a day that justice came down from the heavens against Saddam Hussein.

"The homes of the people he made widows and orphans can be joyful," he said, speaking from Najaf.

Saddam and three aides were sentenced to death for the killing of around 140 Shiites from the village of Dujail after an attempt on his life there in 1982.

The ousted dictator -- who had ruled with an iron fist since 1979 -- was hanged in Baghdad at the age of 69.

His half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar, the ex-chief of Iraq's Revolutionary Court, were hanged two weeks later over the Dujail case, with Saddam's deputy Taha Yassin Ramada also hanged in March 2007.

Jamal Abdallah, spokesman for Iraq's regional Kurdish administration, said: "The execution of Saddam was a turning point in the country's history that marked the end of dictatorship.

"Since then we have worked to establish a stable and democratic regime in the country. We hope that no more dictators are born in Iraq."

The graves of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, who were key figures in his regime and were killed by US forces in the northern city of Mosul in July 2003, lie in the garden outside the hall housing the former leader's grave.

Others close to Saddam await the same fate, with Ali Hassan al-Majid -- nicknamed "Chemical Ali" -- sentenced to die for ordering gas attacks against Kurds in 1988.

Majid was sentenced in June to hang but his execution has been delayed by a legal dispute.

Thousands of former Saddam loyalists have now become allies of US forces, making them targets of Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden, who in a message on Sunday warned them against supporting the American military.

Bin Laden said those fighting Al-Qaeda, known as "Awakening" councils, faced "damnation forever, unless they repent," according to an excerpt translated from the Arabic by the SITE group which monitors Islamist websites.