Gunmen stormed a town in central Somalia on Sunday, seizing it in fierce fighting from a warlord allied with the weak government, as the lawless nation slipped closer to all-out war.
A day after the government rejected a new peace initiative, the powerful Somali Islamic Court (IC) movement pushed to their furthest point north, taking the town of Bandiradley in central Mudug region, witnesses and militia commanders said.
Witnesses said at least 13 people were killed in the battle that is certain to exacerbate already sky-high tensions with the government and brings the militias to less than 100 kilometres (60 miles) of the semi-autonomous enclave of Puntland, which has vowed to resist their advance.
"We have taken control of Bandiradley after heavy fighting," said Mohamed Mohamud Jama, the militia spokesman in Mudug, where the town, about 700 kilometres (440 miles) north of Mogadishu, is located.
He told AFP by phone from Bandiradley that the militias would now march on Galkayo, a major Puntland town about 70 kilometres (43 miles) north.
Such a move would be a major escalation in the deteriorating situation in Somalia that diplomats and analysts fear could erupt into full-scale war and engulf the Horn of Africa region in bloody conflict.
Bandiradley residents said at least 13 fighters were killed in fighting for the town, five militias and eight loyal to ex-Mogadishu warlord Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid.
They also said Qeybdiid lost seven machine gun-mounted pick-ups and two aging tanks in the battle, adding the Islamists lost three armoured vehicles.
A commander for Qeybdiid's militia admitted a retreat, but maintained it was tactical and not a defeat.
"They attacked our bases around Bandiradley airfield and we retreated a bit from the zone although we did not lose the fight," commander Said Dhegoweyne told AFP. Qeybdiid, a former member of a now-defunct US-backed warlord alliance ousted from Mogadishu by the militias in June, is supported by the interim government, Puntland's regional administration and neighbouring Ethiopia.
Somali government officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sporadic fighting began around Bandiradley on Monday, when Qeybdiid's forces launched attacks on Islamists massing in the area.
"They attacked us and we retaliated," Jama, the militia commander, said Sunday. "The result is clear, they are losers and the Islamic courts will win day-by-day until Sharia law is implemented all over the country."
Residents said the captured tanks were given to Qeybdiid by authorities in Puntland but Jama maintained they were from Ethiopia, which the militias accuse of sending thousands of troops to Somalia. Addis Ababa maintains they sent only a few hundred military advisers.
Ethiopia has vowed to defend itself and the transitional administration from attacks by the militias, some of whom are accused of links with international terrorism and al Qaeda.
The presence of their forces in Somalia is a major sticking point in urgent efforts to avert war that could draw in Ethiopia and its arch-foe neighbour Eritrea, which denies reports of having 2,000 troops there.
The militias have rapidly expanded their territory since taking Mogadishu and now control nearly all of southern and central Somalia. They are demanding the withdrawal of the Ethiopians to resume peace talks.
The last round of negotiations collapsed earlier this month in Sudan over that issue and militia demands for the removal as co-mediator of Kenya, which along with Ethiopia backs a government call for regional peacekeepers.
On Saturday, the government rejected an agreement to restart peace talks reached between the militias and influential speaker of the Somali parliament who travelled to Mogadishu last week in a last-ditch bid to prevent a war.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the 1991 ousting of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and the two-year-old transitional government has been unable to assert control.