Fighting kills 18 in Somalia

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Fighting killed at least 18 people on Monday in two towns in central Somalia where rebels battled a pro-government militia and each other, according to witnesses.
The Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca militia, which is aligned with President Sheikh Sharif Ahmeds weak UN-backed administration, struck at Hizbul Islam insurgents in Baladwayne on Sunday and residents said clashes between the two sides resumed on Monday.
Separately, Hizbul Islam fighters battled in Dhobley with members of another guerrilla group, al Shabaab, which Washington says is Al-Qaedas proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state.
Fighting has claimed the lives of more than 21,000 Somalis and driven 1.5 million from their homes since the start of 2007.
Western security agencies say the country is a haven for militants and foreign fighters with the potential to disrupt neighbouring countries.
The rebels want to extend their area of control from the south toward the pro-government, northeastern region of Puntland. Ahmeds government controls little more than the sea port, the airport and his palace in Mogadishu.
Residents in Baladwayne said both sides were exchanging heavy machine gun fire in the streets on Monday, and a Somali human rights group said the death toll of 13 was likely to rise.
Both groups carried away their casualties. We do not know how many fighters died, Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organization, told Reuters.
Separately, witnesses said at least five people were killed on Monday as Hizbul Islam and al Shabaab rebels fought each other in Dhobley town, further west near the border with Kenya.
We attacked the police station and a military compound in Dhobley. We have killed dozens of al Shabaab fighters, Hizbul Islam member Mahmed Amin told Reuters by telephone. We will never stop the fighting.
An al Shabaab spokesman in the rebel-held port of Kismayu denied anyone had died in Dhobley, but declined to elaborate.
In the capital, al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage accused the United States of plotting suicide bombings targeting parts of the city including its busy Bakara Market, and said Washington then planned to blame the violence on the insurgents.
We have discovered that US agencies are going to launch suicide bombings in public places in Mogadishu, Rage told reporters. They have tried it in Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan ... We warn of these disasters. They want to target Bakara Market and mosques, then use that to malign us.
Meanwhile, the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab groups religious police in the Somali city of Kismayo flogged a man for flirting and another for having a secret marriage, an official said Monday.
They received 15 and 39 lashes respectively in front of a crowd in central Kismayo, a large southern harbour which has been under Shebab administration since mid-2008.
One of the young men was found engaging in secret wedlock which is illegal under Islamic law, Sheikh Mohamed Moalim, a senior Shebab official, told AFP from Kismayo.
The other one was found seducing a lady alone. Both of them confessed to the charges in front of a court and they were publicly punished, he said.