Hizbul Islam was a Somali Islamist insurgent group that existed from 2009 to 2010 and from 2012 to 2014 during the Somali Civil War. The group was a merger of several militant groups led by Hassan Dahir Aweys, who sought to overthrow the regime of former Islamic Courts Union leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in Mogadishu, Somalia. From 2010 to 2012, Hizbul Islam merged with al-Shabaab; it separated in 2012, only to rejoin the group in 2014.