Islamists want Qur'an-led govt

2006-06-27 11:02

Nairobi - The radical new leader of Somalia's Islamic militia said he would only support a government based on the Qur'an, offering little hope that the cleric the United States accused of collaborating with al-Qaeda would bring moderate rule to his chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said: "Somalia is a Muslim nation and its people are also Muslim, 100%. Therefore, any government we agree on would be based on the holy Qur'an and the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad."

The militia controlled the capital and much of the rest of southern Somalia.

Aweys against Western-style democracy

Aweys's stance, a harder line than that taken by his predecessor, could steer the country toward a collision with the US and the United Nations.

The militia's previous leader, a relatively moderate cleric, had been reaching out to the West and Somalia's largely powerless UN-backed government in recent weeks.

The 71-year-old Aweys, speaking from his home in central Somalia, condemned any attempts to install a Western-style democracy and said he was under no obligation to abide by the wishes of the West.

He said: "It is not compulsory for us to hate what the Westerners hate."

Aweys 'on terrorist watch list'

Aweys said: "Our relationship with the US administration will depend on how America treats us. If it treats us well, we will also treat them well. If it behaves badly, it will be responsible."

After the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the US put Aweys on a terrorist watch list because he and an Islamic group he founded, al-Itihaad, were believed to be linked to Osama bin Laden, who was living in Sudan in the early 1990s.

Aweys went into hiding after September 11 and re-emerged only in August 2005, after he helped establish the Islamic militia. He said al-Itihaad did not exist anymore and said he had no ties to al-Qaeda.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice and Advocacy Centre in St Paul, Minnesota, a hub for expatriate Somalis, said Aweys' rise to power was troubling.

Extremists are taking the lead

He said: "The election of Aweys is a clear signal that the moderates are losing, extremists are taking the lead, and now the next possible step is that they will impose a Taliban style of government."

In what some feared was the latest sign of a plan to install a hardline regime, militia leaders on Monday said they would publicly stone to death four suspected rapists if they were convicted in Jowhar, 90km from Mogadishu.

The Islamic militia seized control of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia from an alliance of secular warlords earlier this month.

Washington, which accused the militia of harbouring al-Qaeda leaders responsible for deadly 1998 bombings at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, supported the warlords in an attempt to root out terrorists.

- AP