Saddam Hussein To strengthen his own position within the government, Qasim created an alliance with the Iraqi Communist Party, which was opposed to any notion of pan-Arabism. Later that year, the Ba'ath Party leadership was planning to assassinate Qasim. Saddam was a leading member of the operation. At the time, the Ba'ath Party was more of an ideological experiment than a strong anti-government fighting machine. The majority of its members were either educated professionals or students, and Saddam fit the bill. The choice of Saddam was, according to historian Con Coughlin, "hardly surprising". The idea of assassinating Qasim may have been Nasser's,
Execution of Saddam Hussein al-Neda, denies this claim. Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's security advisor, stated, "I oversaw the whole process from A-Z and Saddam Hussein's body was not stabbed or mutilated, and he was not humiliated before execution." Saddam's body was buried in his birthplace of Al-Awja in Tikrit, Iraq, near family members, including his two sons Uday and Qusay Hussein, on 31 December 2006 at 04:00 local time (01:00 GMT). His body was transported to Tikrit by a U.S. military helicopter. Saddam was handed over from Iraqi Government possession to Sheikh Ali al-Nida, the late head of the Albu Nasir tribe and governor of