He's a minority voice in Senegal, but Imam Mamour Fall is not afraid to speak out for Osama bin Laden.
Fall's support for America's enemy number one strikes an especially jarring note in Senegal, a relaxed mainly Muslim country on West Africa's coast where religion is confined to mosques and churches and doesn't stray into politics.
"I know bin Laden. People want me to insult him and I will not do it. He is a great man, a great strategist, a great Muslim, and that is what interests us and not the fact that he is accused of killing people," he told Reuters in Senegal.
Fall, 39, rose to notoriety late last month when he was deported from Italy, where he was imam of the small northern town of Carmagnola.
The Interior Ministry said Fall posed a threat to public order and endangered national security. It said he was known to authorities as someone who received suspect funds. His expulsion also followed public statements in support of bin Laden.
He has been repeating his views since arriving back in Senegal's seaside capital Dakar. But if anything his lone voice is the exception that proves the rule of moderation among West Africa's Muslims.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, attention turned to Africa, seen as a potentially rich recruiting ground for bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
West Africa fits the profile perfectly -- with its diamond mines, convoluted civil wars, surfeit of arms and a strong Muslim tradition in many countries. So far evidence of real links between al Qaeda and the region have proved elusive.
"DEFENSIVE JIHAD"
Fall says he got to know bin Laden, whom he calls Sheikh, in Sudan while both were working in the diamond business. He fought with him in Bosnia, like hundreds of militant Arabs who battled alongside Muslims in the 1992-1995 war.
In Italy, Fall once said he was linked to the al Qaeda leader by a "blood pact". He says he has no links with bin Laden now, and has had no relationship with him 1996.
Fall's expulsion from Italy, where he had lived for 11 years, came after he predicted in a number of newspapers that Italians in Iraq would be attacked. Shortly afterwards, 19 Italians were killed in a suicide bombing in Nassiriya.
Even after that attack and his expulsion, Fall was unapologetic in his defence of his Saudi-born mentor.
"Me, I am a Muslim who wants to apply all that Allah outlined in the Koran, like the Jihad (holy war), solidarity between the Muslims," said the bearded, bespectacled preacher.
"What we can do today is defensive Jihad. If an Islamic territory is attacked as America and its allies are doing today, every Muslim has the duty to attack these invaders."
Recently, however, al Qaeda and its allies have claimed mostly Muslim lives in a string of suicide bombings from Turkey to Saudi Arabia -- attacks made even more shocking because they took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Al Qaeda has promised to send more "cars of death" into the United States, Japan, Italy, Britain, and Muslim countries.
Muslim leaders have reacted angrily, saying the violence has nothing to do with a religion which bans suicide bombs. Saudi Arabia has urged Muslims to unite against "terrorism." It's a message that rings true in Senegal.
"Islam has never called on the faithful to devote oneself to violence. Islam is a religion of peace par excellence," said Alioune Sall, Muslim preacher and host of a popular radio show.
REST AND RELAXATION
It is this kind of view that dominates in West Africa. Security analysts acknowledge that despite its crippling poverty, the region is more likely to be used for rest and relaxation by Islamic militants than for recruiting.
The head of a U.N.-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone has said he had proof al Qaeda were working in Liberia -- but their activities seemed limited to diamond trading and money laundering rather than recruiting among battle-hardened youths.
Militant Islam has generally found it hard to penetrate much of the region, where tribal allegiances mean more than religion.
In Senegal, 95 percent of the population is Muslim but they tend to have a relaxed attitude to their faith -- many women wear Western-style clothes and their idols include Madonna, the raunchy pop star.
Equally, the more fervent anti-Americanism of militant Islam is lacking. Opposition to the war in Iraq was more vocal than elsewhere in the region, but nothing close to that in the Middle East or even in Europe.
In neighbouring Mauritania, fears of extremism run deeper as pro-Western President Maaouya Ould Sid-Ahmed Taya fears foreign-backed zealots are trying to turn his country into a hotbed of Islamic extremism.
Taya has won the backing of the United States, which regards Mauritania as a possible breeding ground for Islamic militants. But even here, Islam is traditionally tolerant and there are few signs that more radical preachers are making serious inroads.
Across West Africa, Fall seems to be outnumbered.
"There are Muslims who commit terrorist acts, but this should never be blamed on Islam. Islam rejects all forms of violence," Sall said, voicing a widespread view.
"If bin Laden is the author of the attacks he is accused of, he will answer to God. Because this religion that is a religion of peace does not allow anyone to take another person's life."