U.S. has direct contacts with Somali Islamists

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22149637.htm

NEW YORK, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The United States held a direct meeting in recent weeks with a key Islamist leader from Somalia and demanded the handover of "terrorists" believed to be in Mogadishu, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, said the U.S. ambassador in Kenya met this month with senior Islamist Sheikh Sharif Ahmed while in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

"It was just normal diplomacy, we opened a channel to talk to them about the fact that we know that there are terrorists residing in Mogadishu and they needed to turn them over," Frazer told Reuters in an interview.

"The response was 'we don't know of any terrorists," she added.