MOGADISHU, Oct 22, 2006 (AFP) - At least five people were killed on Sunday when fighters with Somalia's powerful Islamist movement clashed with government-allied militia amid rising fears of all-out war.

As both sides girded for battles near the weak government's temporary seat of Baidoa, fighting rocked the town of Buale for about two hours with Islamists driving local militiamen out, witnesses said.

A day after government forces, allegedly backed by Ethiopian troops, took Burhakaba, just southeast of Baidoa, fighting erupted in Buale, north of the key port of Kismayo that the Islamists seized last month, they told AFP.

Witnesses and Islamist commanders in Buale, about 88 kilometers (53 miles) from Kismayo, said Muslim gunmen had driven from the town members of the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) who fled north after gunbattles.

"We have taken all of their armed vehicles after fierce clashes with the JVA in Buale," said Ibrahim Hassan Shukri, a commander with the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia. "One of our Mujahedeen was killed in the fighting."

"We took eight battlewagons from the JVA," said another Islamist commander Sheikh Yakubu Ali, referring to machine-gun mounted pick-ups also called "technicals." "The area is under the control of the Islamic courts."

JVA commander Deeq Abbi said his fighters had withdrawn after the fighting in Buale in which four of his men were killed.

"We were attacked by the Islamic courts militia," he told AFP by satellite phone. "They took two vehicles from us and killed four of our fighters. We have retreated from Buale."

The JVA is led by the defense minister in Somalia's transitional government, which is facing a serious challenge from the Islamists, who seized Mogadishu in June from warlords and now control most of southern and central Somalia.

It held Kismayo, about 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of Mogadishu, until September 24 when its forces fled ahead of a feared push on the town by advancing Islamists, but has since vowed to retake it.

The fighting in Buale came as tension gripped Burhakaba, about 60 kilometers (38 miles) southeast of Baidoa, which was occupied on Saturday after heavy fighting between government forces and an Islamist-allied militia.

Residents said hundreds of villagers were fleeing the town in anticipation of new violence.

"The tension is too high and everybody is expecting war," said local elder Osman Ibrahim Aden. "People have started fleeing their villages to escape,"

The new clashes come as the Islamists and the government are under increasing pressure to take part in a third round of Arab League-mediated peace talks in Khartoum set to begin on October 30.

Somalia has been without a functioning central administration since 1991 and the government, formed in neighboring Kenya in 2004, has been wracked by infighting and unable to assert control over much of the country.

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