MOGADISHU, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Somali opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), Tuesday named the hard-line Islamist cleric Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys as chairman, replacing Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, who is seen as a moderate.

    "We have named Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys as the chairman of the Alliance and we no longer recognize Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed as the legitimate leader of the alliance," Ismael Addow, a member of the alliance, told Somalia's Shabelle Radio by phone from Asmara, the Eritrean capital.

    Aweys has been the spiritual leader of the Islamic Courts Union which controlled much of southern and central Somalia for the latter half of 2006 before they were driven out by a joint Ethiopian and Somali government forces. He is on the U.S. list of "Wanted Terrorists" and is now in exile in Asmara.

    Ahmed has dismissed the move as illegitimate, stressing that he is the legitimate chairman of the alliance.

    Under the Djibouti Agreement signed between Somali interim government and some members of the ARS, the two sides agreed that they should cease all hostilities effective thirty days from the signing of the agreement on June 9.

    Aweys and other hardline Islamists rejected the pact.

    The deadline set by the agreement passed a week ago but the near daily violence continues unabated in the south and center of the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.

    The two sides also agreed that the Ethiopian troops in Somalia who crossed into the country in late 2006 to help Somali government forces oust the Islamist administration, would withdraw after the deployment of a "sufficient number" of UN stabilization forces.