SOMALIA: Somalia's newly powerful sharia courts have appointed a leading Islamist on a US list of wanted terrorists as head of their parliament, in a move likely to raise alarm in the West.
Hardline Muslim cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was named head of the Council of the Islamic Courts, what the Islamists call a parliament for the group whose militia took Mogadishu from secular warlords on June 5th and moved into the hinterland.
The moderate face of the courts, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, was named head of an executive committee in charge of the courts administration, which will implement the parliament's decisions.
"Consultations are going on. It is not final," an aide to Sheikh Ahmed said, adding that other appointments would be made in restructuring the Islamic Courts Union. "It will . . . prevent future disagreements over power."
The ICU leadership has tried hard to present a moderate image, including inviting western journalists to Mogadishu, to offset accusations that it harbours al-Qaeda-linked extremists. The killing of a Swedish cameraman at a Mogadishu protest on Friday was a blow to the ICU, which says it has brought relative law and order to the capital after 15 years of anarchy.
Sheikh Aweys was appointed just days after the Islamists and the interim government, formed in 2004 but too weak to move to Mogadishu, agreed to recognise each other, stop military campaigns and hold more talks in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.
The rise of the sheikh will alarm the West, worried that the Islamists want to establish Taliban-style rule in Somalia.
"It's clearly disturbing. It raises all kinds of questions about whether what happened in Khartoum was just for show and the real nature of the Islamic courts," one diplomat said.