Aweys denies Osama affiliation
2006-07-03 15:40
Mogadishu - The hardline supreme leader of Somalia's Islamic courts on Monday denied any affiliation with al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and said his group took no orders from outsiders.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, whose increasingly powerful courts seized Mogadishu from the United States-backed warlords after fierce clashes last month, said bin Laden's weekend message to Somali Islamists "has nothing to do with us".
Aweys said: "The statement made by Osama has nothing to do with us." Aweys had been designated a terrorist by the US for alleged extremist links, in his first comments about bin Laden's message.
'We have no connection with Osama'
He said: "Muslims share common emotions and maybe he felt like this could help Muslims who have problems today and so he made this statement.
"He is not with us and he is far away, but maybe he wanted to express his personal feelings for other Muslims. We have no connection with him. No one has the right to dictate what we should do."
Aweys led the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS), whose militia took Mogadishu from the warlords on June 05 and had vowed to expand its authority in an apparent challenge to the country's fledgling government.
The US and others accused the Islamists of harbouring extremists, including al-Qaeda members held responsible for the 1998 bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, a charge denied by Aweys and others.
Ali Mohamed Gedi slams bin Laden
Bin Laden came out against the deployment of foreign peacekeepers in Somalia, which had lacked a functioning government for the last 15 years, and vowed resistance to them.
On Sunday, the African Union renewed its support for regional peacekeepers to be sent to Somalia, a deployment Aweys and other Islamists had pledged in the past to fight.
Also on Sunday, the prime minister of Somalia's largely powerless transitional government, Ali Mohamed Gedi, slammed bin Laden and his message and said the comments confirmed the presence of extremists in Somalia.
Somalia was plunged into lawlessness in 1991 after the ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and the nation of some 10 million was later divided into a patchwork of fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords.
But, in recent years, Islamic courts had moved to fill the power vacuum, restoring a semblance of order to areas they controlled with the imposition of Sharia law.