Two Islamist groups, previously working together in Somalia, are engaged in fierce fighting for control of the southern port of Kismayo.

At least five people are reported to have been killed and hundreds of people have fled their homes.

Al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam have been national allies against the weak, UN-backed government, but tension has been building in Kismayo in recent weeks.

Together, the two groups control most southern and central areas.

‘Brothers’

The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan in the capital, Mogadishu, says fighting started at dawn with sporadic gunfire.

But residents told him it quickly escalated with fighters on the streets of the town using light and heavy machine-guns as well as rocket-propelled grenades.

Some of those he spoke to had already fled their homes and he could hear loud explosions in the background.

“We were attacked by our brothers with no reason,” local Hizbul Islam spokesman Sheikh Ismail Haji Adow said, reports the AFP news agency.

“They [al-Shebab] launched their offensive on several fronts very early this morning. The fighting is very intense but we are holding up,” he said.

Our reporter says the Islamist groups have been in an uneasy alliance to run the town for almost a year.

But last week al-Shabab named a new administration which excluded Hizbul Islam.

The tension escalated through the media, with both sides advising their fighters on Wednesday to ready themselves for a possible war.

Our reporter says the fall-out could mean that battles erupt in villages and towns around the country where there are joint administrations.

Analysts say it could be a turning-point for the embattled government.

At the moment it only controls small areas of the capital, with the help of African Union peacekeeping troops.

President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, was chosen in January after UN-brokered peace talks.

He has vowed to implement Sharia but al-Shabab, which is accused of links to al-Qaeda, sees him as a Western puppet.

The country has been wracked by conflict since 1991, when it last had an effective national government.

Some three million people – half the population – need food aid, while hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country.

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Source: BBC

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