MOGADISHU, Aug 21, 2007 (AFP) - Thousands of villagers were Tuesday fleeing central Somalia as rival fighters regrouped, raising a spectre of fresh clashes between sub-clans feuding over access to water, elders said.

Families filed out of El-Buur district to neighbouring areas, two days after battles between Murursade and Hawadle sub-clans claimed at least 20 people, and elders failed to secure a truce.

"Tension is still high as warring sides are reinforcing and it is possible that fighting might start anytime. People are fleeing because of fear," said Abdisamad Sahal Hassan, an elder in the region.

Hassan said a peace team had been deployed into the remote areas largely inhabited by pastoralist sub-clans to try and breath life into stalled peace negotiations.

Another elder, Haji Abdi Dhinsow, said initial efforts to broker a truce had failed since the fighting erupted Saturday after several months of a lull.

"There are no signs of negotiations. That is why we have fled the area," Dhinsow told AFP by phone.

Bitter grudges and endless squabbling over water and pasture boil over during the dry season amid a deadly scramble for resources in the country's dustbowl plains, where livestock is key to livelihood.

Somalia slid into lawlessness after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre set the stage for a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous efforts to restore normalcy.

The transitional government's fixation on Mogadishu, the epicentre of Somali unrest, has left much of the countryside under the control of clan elders, whose influence is waning.

In Mogadishu, insurgents bent of paralysing the government's ability to govern, are carrying out near-daily attacks despite the presence of Somali troops, Ethiopian forces and African Union peacekeepers.

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