MOGADISHU, July 19 (Reuters) - Heavily armed Islamist militia who control the capital advanced towards the seat of Somalia's interim administration on Wednesday, stoking fears of conflict and leading the government to put its troops on alert.

"We see it as aggression towards government-controlled areas and the people who support us," Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told Reuters from the government's provincial base in Baidoa.

Somalia has had no central rule since the 1991 ouster of a military dictator, and the Western-backed interim government's hopes of moving to Mogadishu were frustrated when the Islamists seized the capital last month from U.S.-backed warlords.

The militia move to the town of Buur Hakaba on Wednesday inflamed the already high tension with the government, which many Somalis fear could boil over into a war for supremacy in the Horn of Africa nation of 10 million.

Islamist militiamen, riding on heavily armed pickup trucks known as "technicals", arrived in Buur Hakaba in the morning, the closest they have come to Baidoa from Mogadishu.

Islamist officials said their militia went to the hilly town -- 60 km (37 miles) from Baidoa -- to receive 150 government troops switching allegiance, then headed back with them on the road to Mogadishu late in the day.

Whether they had gone any way beyond Buur Hakaba, on the road to Baidoa, could not be independently confirmed.

Gedi said the Islamists had breached an agreement signed with the government last month to stop military campaigns: "We call upon the Islamic courts to stop fighting. We hope they will end those acts and take part in peace efforts in our country."

"There is nobody who can take over Somalia by force."

WAR FEARS

The government, which despite its international recognition has no real authority on the ground beyond Baidoa, said it had received reports the Islamists were 35 km (22 miles) from them.

President Abdullahi Yusuf was not in Baidoa but in his home region and stronghold Puntland, government sources said.

The Islamists confirmed their move to Buur Hakaba.

"It's true that 150 government forces have joined the Islamic courts. I am with them and I'm bringing them to Mogadishu," Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, a senior Islamic official in charge of defence, told Reuters.

Residents in Buur Hakaba town said the militiamen arrived in a convoy of more than 20 technicals, Somalia's version of tanks.

An Islamist source in Mogadishu, who asked not to be named, insisted there were no plans to attack Baidoa.

Two days ago the Islamists opened a sharia court in the government-controlled Bakol and Bay area, where Baidoa is located. It was the first time they had set up a court in an area they do not yet control since taking Mogadishu.

Both analysts and diplomats feared conflict might break out.

"My prediction is that there is going to be war," said Omar Jamal, a U.S.-based Somali exile who heads an advocacy group. "The Islamic militia want to take over Baidoa, that will bring Ethiopia in, then the suffering of the Somali people will just continue."

Another expert, based in Nairobi, said there was a "50:50" chance of conflict in Somalia in the coming weeks.

He cited Islamist military expansion, an attack by gunmen loyal to Yusuf on Mogadishu, or intervention by Yusuf's powerful ally, Ethiopia, as possible triggers.

Up to 2,000 Ethiopian troops and several tanks crossed the border into Somalia last week to join about 2,000 soldiers already there, diplomats, officials and analysts have said.

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