Chanting "Down with Saddam," a jubilant crowd of some 2,000 mostly Shiite Iraqis rejoiced in the "liberation," of their homeland as they rallied in a park in this heavily Arab suburb of Detroit.

"It's a very emotional day for us," said Modhar Al-Modhar, 33. "We appreciate what Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair have done for us."

"We've been up all night watching TV, but we're not tired," said Ali Il-Sayad, 39, savouring the moment with his twin seven-year old daughters.

"We're too excited to sleep."

"We will go back home, inshallah (god willing)," said Bayadaa Al-Bayali, a 20-year-old mother-of-two who fled her homeland when she was just 12. "We want to taste freedom in our country."

For many gathered here though, euphoria was mixed with concern for the welfare of relatives back in Iraq -- their fate, for the most part, still unclear because of Iraq's bomb-damaged communications infrastrucure.

"This is an important day for us," said Mohammed Alhashemi. "I am going to mark it in my diary. The next day I mark in my diary will be the day I speak to my family in Iraq."

The 35-year-old truck driver has seven sisters and almost two dozen nephews and nieces in Samawa, southern Iraq, who he hasn't heard from since the outbreak of hostilities three weeks ago.

"I tried to send them money before the war, so they could go to Syria, but the Iraqi military stopped them leaving," he said. "I hope with all my heart they are still alive."

Like many exiles, Alhashemi fled his homeland after the 1991 Shiite uprising that was ruthlessly put down by the regime of Saddam Hussein, but he hopes to return, in a matter of weeks, if possible.

"I'd like to go next month if possible. I haven't seen my family since 1991," he said.

Wednesday began for Alhashemi as it did for many Iraqi exiles, with the television images of Iraqi citizens in Baghdad tearing down a statue of Saddam Hussein with the help of US troops.

The images sent dozens of Iraqis in the predominantly Shiite Muslim neighborhoods of east Dearborn out onto the streets, dancing and chanting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" and "Thank you, George Bush!"

Some men chopped a wooden portrait of Hussein to pieces, punching, karate chopping, and breaking it over their knees. An elderly woman draped in a black robe took off her shoe and pounded on it. Some spit; one man splashed hot coffee on the painting.

By early evening, up to 2,000 Iraqis had gathered in Hemlock Park in this town, which has the largest concentration of Arabs in the United States, to celebrate the demise of their old foe -- Saddam Hussein.

The mood for the most part was joyous, with revellers wrapping themselves in the Stars and Stripes and hoisting signs reading "Saddam: Gone with The Wind."

But the mood turned tense at one point as dozens of people turned on a camera crew from the Al-Jazeera satellite TV network, accusing them of being against the war.

"Shame on you. Shame on you," one man yelled. The crowd booed loudly; the crew retreated behind police lines, where many still heckled them.

But not everyone in the crowd was singing from the same hymn sheet.

A 35-year-old, who would only identify himself as Mohammed, railed against the US-led invasion of Iraq, which he said had taken the lives of three of his siblings.

"Killing children is murder. It's a crime," he said. "How can the Americans say they are liberating us when they killed so many civilians?"

Mohammed said he had heard from his mother in Syria that two brothers and a sister died in the US bombardment of the southern Iraqi city of Basra in the first week of the war.

San Al-Fadl, a 36-year-old Shiite, whose sister was also injured in the bombing of Basra, rejected the notion that the US-led invasion of Iraq was designed to liberate the Iraqi people.

"This so-called freedom is a big lie," he said, criticising the decision to topple Saddam by violent means.

"Their smart bombs killed children. Hopefully America will pay for it. Hopefully this will turn out to be another Somalia," he said, in a reference to the United State's ignominious retreat from that African nation after a botched humanitarian mission in the 1990s.

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