Saddam Hussein's execution has inspired a gruesome cycle of revenge, with scores of Shia Muslims found hanged from lampposts in Baghdad. The residents of the city's Haifa Street will long remember the events of Sunday morning. As shop owners raised their shutters and stall holders set out their stock, three minibuses roared to a halt. Gunmen jumped out and pulled blindfolded prisoners on to the street. Ropes were tied to lampposts and electricity poles. Those hostages who resisted were shot. Others who were still alive had nooses tied around their necks and were then suspended in mid air to choke to death.

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BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday threatened to “review” relations with countries which have criticised the bungled execution of Saddam Hussein, saying the hanging was an internal matter. As Maliki lashed out at critics of his government, 27 corpses of people killed execution-style in central Baghdad were found, providing more grisly evidence of Iraq’s raging sectarian conflict. “The Iraqi government could be obliged to review its relations with any state that fails to respect the wish of the Iraqi people,” said Maliki in his first reaction to the ousted president’s hanging in Baghdad on December 30.

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Iran Sunday warned Israel against attacking any of its nuclear sites.The warning in Sunday's Jerusalem Post was in response to a Times of London report that Israel was planning to attack sites Iran claims are being set up for peaceful nuclear power use. "Anyone who attacks will regret their actions very quickly," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Ali Husseini said. "This step even comes after the Israeli prime minister's admission, which revealed the fact that the Israeli regime has nuclear weapons in its possession," Husseini said, referring to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's mention on German TV that Israel was one of the world's nuclear-equipped nations.

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LONDON (Reuters) - Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons, Britain's Sunday Times newspaper said. Citing what it said were several Israeli military sources, the paper said two Israeli air force squadrons had been training to blow up an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear "bunker busters". Two other sites, a heavy water plant at Arak and a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, would be targeted with conventional bombs, the Sunday Times said. The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously last month to slap sanctions on Iran to try to stop uranium enrichment that Western powers fear could lead to making bombs. Tehran insists its plans are peaceful and says it will continue enrichment.

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A Shiite cleric was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Pakistan's northern city of Peshawar, media reports said Friday. Syed Ali Imam Jafari, an imam, or prayer leader at a local mosque, was on his way home after a service Thursday when three assailants opened fire on him with automatic weapons before fleeing the scene. The victim died instantly, according to the English-language daily The News. Police launched an investigation into the murder. Other reports said Jafari's relatives and members of the public gathered at the hospital where his body was brought to protest the killing and demand government protection for the minority Shiite community.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

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