Mogadishu, Somalia - The new supreme leader of Somalia's Islamic courts, which seized control of Mogadishu this month from a US-backed warlord alliance, said that Sharia law would be imposed throughout the country.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a hardline cleric designated a terrorist by the United States, which says he has links to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, also said the US charges were "misplaced" and a "distortion of the truth."
"It is not proper to put somebody on a list of terrorists who has not killed or harmed anybody," he told AFP in an interview following his election as head of the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC) at the weekend.
"This is a mistake that should be rectified by those who compiled the list," he said.
"I am not a terrorist. But if strictly following my religion and love for Islam makes me a terrorist, then I will accept the designation."
At the same time, he said, the courts would respond in kind to any display of disrespect directed at them by outside powers or by Somalia's largely powerless transitional government, with which Aweys has extremely strained ties.
"We must follow the rule of law as laid down by Allah," Aweys said from central Somalia's Galgudud region, his home region where he has been setting up new Islamic courts for the past several months.
"We will come together by following the commands of God and the teachings of the Koran," Aweys said, referring to cooperation with the transitional government headed by his longtime foe, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
"Those are the principles that will bring us together," he said. "By the will of Allah, we will come together.
"We will treat people the way they treat us," Aweys added. "If they respect us, we will do the same and respect them. Anyone using bad faith will receive the same treatment."
Aweys was elected on Saturday to head the CIC, which will have ultimate authority over the coalition of Islamic courts that wrested Mogadishu from the warlord alliance on June 5 after months of bloody fighting.
His appointment, along with the election of a several other conservative clerics to the council to replace more moderate imams, has rekindled fears of a Taliban-like takeover of Somalia that could become a haven and breeding ground for radical Islam.
Believed to be in his late 60s, Aweys founded the capital's first Sharia court in the mid-1990s and is suspected of having orchestrated the Islamic militia's seizure of the capital.
He was named a "specially designated global terrorist" by the United States in November 2001 and is subject to US travel and financial sanctions for alleged ties with Al-Qaeda.
Those links and charges that the courts are harboring extremists, including Al-Qaeda members, were a key reason Washington backed the warlord-led Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT).
Aweys said he did not understand the US designation and slammed the United States for interfering in Somali affairs.
"It makes no sense," he said. "The idea of freezing my bank accounts is pointless because I have no accounts in America.
"America is not our God and they are not our leaders," he said. "We feel much more superior than America. We are people who believe in Allah, let them do whatever they want."
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority for the past 15 years since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre plunged the country into anarchic chaos.
Yusuf's government is the latest in a series of more than a dozen efforts to restore stability to the Horn of Africa nation, which has been ruled at gunpoint by warlords since 1991.
"This is our country, it belongs to Somalis and responsibility has been given to me by Somalis," Aweys said. "I will fulfill that duty."
The United States meanwhile ruled out any contact with the firebrand cleric, but left the door open to contact with other members of the CIC.
"Certainly, of course, we're not going to work with somebody like that," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, referring to Aweys. "And of course, we would be troubled if this is an indicator of the direction that this group would go in."
He said Washington would adopt a wait-and-see attitude before taking a stand on the council. The US will assess the CIC's commitment to humanitarian matters, fighting terrorism and "building up the transitional federal institutions," McCormack said.