A prominent Somali cleric who is on the United States list of terror suspects has been elected as head of an Islamist militia that controls the Somali capital and most of the southern regions.

An Islamic Courts Union (ICU) official confirmed on Monday that Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was elected in absentia late Saturday as the head of the 88-strong legislative council, Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), succeeding the more moderate Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in the newly created power structure.

A new, eight-member executive committee will be chaired by a more moderate figure, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

"I am ready to lead the delegation that negotiates with the government, but we will not compromise our stand relating to Islamic system," Aweys reportedly said.

Until now Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was regarded as leader of the Union of Islamic Courts, the militia that wrested control of Mogadishu from warlords two weeks ago.

Consultations on the new structure are reportedly still under way in the capital, Mogadishu.

"This is not final as consultations are going on. They are still going to make other appointments to restructure of the ICU," said Abdirahim Isse, an aide to Ahmed.

Sheikh Aweys, a prominent cleric, is seen as more radical. He previously headed an armed group, al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, which the United States said had links with al-Qaeda.

The network of 11 Islamic courts has been set up in recent years in Mogadishu, funded by businessmen in an attempt to reestablish law and order.

Accepting his election from the Galgadud region of Somalia, Aweys called on the inhabitants of Mogadishu to be ready for Islamist rule via local radio broadcast.

A former military colonel who once sentenced current President Abdulahi Yusuf to death after seizing the northern port city of Bosaso in 1992, the hardline cleric is an avowed rival of Yusuf's largely powerless transitional administration.

Observers fear the fractious personal relationship between the two men and Aweys's hardline Islamist ideology could derail a peace pact signed between the Islamists and the transitional government last Thursday in Sudan.

The courts' stated goal is to restore a system of Sharia law and put an end to impunity and fighting.

A Somali link has been assumed in al-Qaeda-linked attacks in East Africa -- including the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2002 attacks on Israeli tourists in Kenya.
 
The ICU, which has brought relative peace and stability to Mogadishu after 15 years of anarchy, has made efforts to offset accusations that it harbors al-Qaeda linked extremists.

The courts and the powerless transitional government based in Baidoa, about 250 kilometers northwest of the capital, on last Thursday signed a mutual recognition pact in Khartoum, paving the way for future peace talks.

Somalia has lacked an effective government since 1991 when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991, paving the way for the rise of the now-defeated warlords who ubdivided the country into a patchwork of fiefdoms.

(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2006)