* Opposition leader says no talks if AU troops remain * Says supporters will continue fighting government (Adds Ethiopian comment) By Abdi Sheikh MOGADISHU, April 24 (Reuters) - Somalia's hardline opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said on Friday there would be no talks with the government until an African Union peace mission (AMISOM) quits the Horn of Africa nation. Aweys, who is on the U.S. terrorism list for alleged links to al Qaeda, is an influential figure among Islamist insurgents in Somalia, where about a million civilians have been driven from their homes by conflict in the last two years. "Let AMISOM leave, then we shall have talks with our deceived friends, government officials," Aweys told a crowd of hundreds of opposition supporters gathered in Mogadishu. He returned to the Somali capital on Thursday in his first known trip home since being ousted by an Ethiopian-led offensive in late 2006. "AMISOM is not a peacekeeping force," he said. "They are bacteria in Somalia. Somalia has not yet reached peaceful agreement. So be patient. We are left with little time to fight and achieve our Islamic objective." AMISOM, a 4,300-strong force of Ugandan and Burundian troops, faces near-daily rebel attacks in Mogadishu. Aweys and the new Somali president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, headed the Islamic Courts Union which controlled Mogadishu and much of the south until Addis Ababa's December 2006 offensive. They later split, with Aweys heading the hardline Asmara-based Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS). "This government is implementing the ideology we previously rejected: American and Ethiopian ideology," Aweys said on Friday. "We shall continue fighting." AWEYS AS PEACEMAKER? It is too early to judge whether Aweys could actually end up being a peacemaker for Somalia, one regional expert told Reuters, adding that exile in Eritrea may have mellowed him. "The return of Aweys ... is a major boost for Sharif and his government," said Rashid Abdi, an International Crisis Group analyst for the Horn of Africa. "If he is returning as a spoiler, then it's bad for Somalia. But if he is coming as a peacemaker, then Somalis will welcome him and who knows, he could be lifted from the (terror) list." Abdi said Ethiopia would be keenly watching Aweys' return as he was one of the reasons it invaded Somalia in the first place. Aweys has in the past claimed Ethiopia's remote ethnically-Somali eastern Ogaden region as Somali territory. "We are closely and seriously monitoring what Aweys is saying," Bereket Simon, Ethiopian government's head of information, told Reuters. Donors pledged at least $213 million in Brussels on Thursday to help Somalia strengthen its security forces and help fund the AMISOM mission over the next year. [ID:nLN86947] Abdi said that sum was far too small. "This figure is inadequate. Somalia needs an inflow of massive resources," he said. "We are way away from the amount needed to get it back on its feet." (Additional reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura in Nairobi and Barry Malone in Addis Ababa; Writing by Jack Kimball; editing by Daniel Wallis)
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki addresses a news conference after the International Somali donors conference in Brussels April 23, 2009. International donors pledged on Thursday to give Somalia more than $250 ...
