Cuba mourns Fidel Castro

Havana : Cuba mourned revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Sunday as the communist island prepared to say its last goodbyes to the towering giant of its modern history with mass memorials and a four-day funeral procession.

After the stunned commotion surrounding Saturday's announcement that Castro had died at age 90, Sunday was set to be a day of calm preparations, with no official activities planned.

Castro, whose iron-fisted rule defied the United States for half a century, died late Friday after surviving 11 US administrations and hundreds of assassination attempts.

The authorities did not give a cause of death.

The polarizing leader, a titan of the 20th century who beat the odds to endure well into the 21st, was to be cremated Saturday, the first of nine days of national mourning.

A series of memorials will begin Monday, when Cubans are called to converge on Havana's iconic Revolution Square.

Castro's ashes will then go on a four-day procession through the country, before being buried in the southeastern city of Santiago on December 4.

Santiago, Cuba's second city, was the scene of Castro's ill-fated first attempt at revolution in 1953 -- six years before he succeeded in ousting US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.

Adored by admirers as a savior of the people, reviled by enemies as a cruel tyrant, Castro ruled Cuba from 1959 until he handed power to his younger brother Raul in 2006 amid a health crisis.

Even then, he continued to loom large, penning diatribes against American "imperialism" in the state press and wielding influence behind the scenes.