Six people have died after rival Islamist militia fought in a town just outside Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
A shootout took place at a checkpoint in Elasha, 15km south of Mogadishu, last night, witnesses said, sending refugees and residents fleeing into local woods.
The Islamists, who have been waging a nearly two-year insurgency in the Horn of Africa nation, took Elasha last week, giving them their closest base yet to the capital.
But they are split between the so-called "Djibouti group", which supports a UN-brokered peace process that foresees power-sharing between the Islamists and the government, and the "Asmara group" which opposes any accord.
Peace talks have been taking place in Djibouti, while some exiled hardline Islamists leaders have been based in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea.
Witnesses said two factions of the Islamic Courts Union, one of the main Islamist groups, fired grenades and machine-guns at each other near the checkpoint at Elasha. Two fighters from each side, plus two civilians, died, they said.
The Islamists' advance on Mogadishu in recent days has raised the stakes in an insurgency that is the latest manifestation of 17 years of civil conflict in Somalia since warlords toppled a dictator in 1991.
The conflict has destabilised the Horn of Africa, created one of the world's worst refugee crises, spawned a wave of piracy off the coast, frustrated international peace efforts, and delayed plans to explore for oil and minerals.
President Abdullahi Yusuf said over the weekend that Islamists now control most of Somalia and raised the prospect his government could completely collapse.
Splits in the Western-backed Somali government, which has little control on the ground beyond its own Ethiopian-protected bases, have hindered its ability to manage the situation.
Reuters