Sept 14 (Reuters) - Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was named on Friday to head a new opposition alliance formed in Eritrea and vowing war on Ethiopian troops in Somalia.

Here are key facts about the new chairman of the Alliance For The Re-Liberation Of Somalia (ARS):

* Born on July 25, 1964, in Mahaday district about 100 km (60 miles) north of Mogadishu, the 43-year-old Ahmed first attended Koranic schools then spent two stints studying in Sudan and Libya during the 1990s.

* Considered a moderate Muslim, Ahmed chaired the Islamic Courts movement since July 2004. The organisation grouped more than a dozen sharia tribunals which emerged in the late 1990s to impose order on Mogadishu.

* Ahmed's movement took Mogadishu, and most of south Somalia, from warlords by force in mid-2006. During a six-month rule, it was credited with bringing peace and stability to the region, for the first time in 15 years, but was also criticised for hardline religious practices like banning public cinemas.

* After the Islamic Courts' movement was routed by allied Ethiopian and Somali government troops at the end of 2006, leaders, fighters and supporters scattered either to hideouts in Somalia or abroad. Ahmed surrendered to Kenyan authorities on the border in January, but was released days later.

* Viewed by the West as a moderate and a possible key to reconciliation in Somali politics, Ahmed has had contacts with Washington including a meeting with the U.S. envoy to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, in January.

* Ahmed has a softly spoken, scholarly demeanour, frequently citing the Koran in his discourse, joking occasionally, and avoiding the more militant rhetoric of some other Islamists.

* Ahmed rejects suggestions his Islamic courts movement harbours foreign extremists or is linked to al Qaeda. "I will repeat and repeat, there are no al Qaeda in Somalia. We are not terrorists ... Why does George Bush hate me?" he told Reuters last year.

Sources: Sharif Sheikh Ahmed himself and aides, analysts.

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