Fighting between Somalia's rebel Hizbul Islam group and a pro-government militia resumed on Monday, a day after clashes in the strategic central Somali town of Baladwayne killed at least 13 people, a rights group and witnesses said.

Hizbul Islam and another rival insurgent group, al Shabaab, want to impose a strict version of sharia [Islamic law] across the lawless Horn of Africa nation.
 

Somalia has lacked a functional central government since 1991. The transitional government controls little more than a few blocks of Mogadishu, with the rest carved up between al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam.
 

Al Shabaab - viewed by Washington as al Qaeda's proxy in the region - and Hizbul Islam are fighting each other for control of the rest of the country.
 

Elman peace and human rights group said at least 13 people were killed and 18 others wounded in Sunday's fighting between Hizbul Islam and clan militias.
 

"The death toll is higher. Both groups carried their casualties. We do not know how many fighters died," Ali Yasin Gedi, Elman's vice chairman, told Reuters.
 

Residents said fighting resumed in Baladwayne on Monday.
 

"Both groups are exchanging machine gun fire in the streets," resident Hussein Abdulle told Reuters.
 

Fighting has killed 19,000 Somalis and forced 1.5 million from their homes since the beginning of 2007, and Western security agencies say the country has become a sanctuary for militants, including jihadists.
 

On Sunday, another pro-government militia, Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, executed an al Shabaab commander after he refused to renounce al Shabaab's hardline ideology.

Source: Reuters