The new leader of an Islamic militia is suspected by the United States of being a collaborator with the terror network.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 25, 2006
MOGADISHU, Somalia - A fundamentalist Muslim who is listed by the U.S. State Department as a suspected al-Qaida collaborator was named Saturday as the leader of an Islamic militia that seized control of Somalia's capital.
The militia, which changed its name Saturday from the Islamic Courts Union to the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, said in a statement it had appointed Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys as its new leader. The Bush administration has said Aweys was an associate of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s.
The Islamic militia seized control of the capital Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia from an alliance of warlords this month. Aweys' appointment makes it unlikely that the increasingly powerful militia will govern using the moderate brand of Islam practiced by most Somalis.
The appointment is also likely to stoke Washington's long-standing fears that the chaotic Horn of Africa nation will become a safe haven for bin Laden's terror network, much like Afghanistan did in the 1990s.
U.S. officials have accused the Islamists in Somalia of harboring al-Qaida leaders responsible for the deadly 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Aweys appeared on a list of individuals and organizations accused of having ties to terrorism which the United States released after the Sept. 11 attacks. A conservative Somali group called al-Itihaad al-Islaami and its founder, Aweys, were featured for their alleged links to bin Laden while the al-Qaida leader was living in Sudan in the early 1990s.
The State Department had no comment Saturday.
Aweys, a cleric believed to be in his 60s, has said al-Itihaad no longer exists and he has no ties to al-Qaida. He went into hiding after the Sept. 11 attacks and re-emerged in August 2005.
He helped establish the Islamic Courts Union militia and is one of the group's most influential leaders, advocating a strict Islamic government to end 15 years of anarchy in Somalia.
