Somali Islamists give cleric wanted by US top post

MOGADISHU, June 25 (Reuters) Somalia's newly powerful sharia courts have appointed a leading Islamist on Washington's list of most wanted terrorists as head of their new parliament, officials today said.

Hardline Muslim cleric Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was named head of the Council of the Islamic Courts, a parliament for the Islamic courts group which seized Mogadishu from secular warlords on June 5 and advanced 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,'' Abdirahim Isse, an aide to Ahmed, told Reuters, adding other appointments would be made in restructuring the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).

''It will ... prevent future disagreements over power,'' he said.

The ICU, which has brought relative peace and stability to Mogadishu after 15 years of anarchy, has tried to dispel suspicions that it harbours extremists linked to al Qaeda.

Aweys' appointment came 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.

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