From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Tue Jul 22 2008 - 16:29:35 EDT
Hardline Islamist takes over Somalia's opposition
22 Jul 2008 16:39:00 GMT
Source: Reuters
MOGADISHU, July 22 (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline Islamist Sheikh Hassan
Dahir Aweys said on Tuesday he had taken charge of the exiled opposition
in Eritrea from its moderate chairman who attended U.N.-brokered peace
talks last month.
"Now I Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys am the chairman of the executive
committee as well as the general head," Sheikh Dahir Aweys, who is on
U.S. and U.N. lists of al Qaeda associates, told Reuters by phone.
Aweys takes over as head of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of
Somalia (ARS) from the moderate Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.
"Sheikh Sharif was replaced because he and his group hated and left the
Somali Re-Liberation group in Asmara," he said.
Somalia's interim government and some members of the ARS signed a deal
in Djibouti last month calling for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers
and agreeing to a ceasefire after a month.
Aweys and other hardline Islamists rejected the pact.
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