Free Republic

Note: Photo included. Photo caption: "Hizbul Islam leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys." # A senior Islamist leader and ally of al Qaeda has called for additional suicide attacks against African Union peacekeepers operating in Mogadishu. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of Hizbul Islam, or the Party of God, called for more suicide attacks during a sermon in the town of Elashabiyah, just outside Mogadishu. "I also call upon the people to carry out more attacks against the African forces; they came to Somalia to assist our enemy, kill them ... in any way possible and use suicide attacks to...

A hardline Somali leader on a U.N. list of terror suspects claimed Tuesday to be making progress in uniting two Islamist insurgent factions as a single front against the Western-backed government. Militiamen loyal to Islamic Party leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys have been fighting side-by-side in recent weeks with al-Shabab, an extremist Islamist group considered by the U.S. State Department to be a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida. Al-Shabab denies that. "Talks to unite al-Shabab and the Islamic Party are at an advanced stage,"

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A fundamentalist Muslim who is listed by the U.S. State Department as a suspected al-Qaida collaborator was named Saturday as the new leader of an Islamic militia that has seized control of Somalia's capital. The militia, which changed its name Saturday from the Islamic Courts Union to the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, said in a statement it had appointed Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys as its new leader. The Bush administration says Aweys was an associate of Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s. The Islamic militia seized control of the capital Mogadishu and much of southern...