Bay,(insidesomalia.org)- Somali Islamists seized the control of Deynunay town 20km south of Baidoa city the seat of Somalia parliament on Wednesday night, killing one government soldier- spokesman said.

The rebels, armed with rocket launchers and machine guns, voluntarily retreated after three hours, said resident Muse Daud.

He said the town had been under "no-one's control" since the Islamists withdrew, one soldiers was slaughtered by the Islamist Alshabab fighters.

Residents said hundreds of civilians fled the battlezones in the town, where hundreds of people fled from Mogadishu left for peace shelter.

"People have already started fleeing (from the area) and there are a lot of armed forces from both sides," Muhidin Ali Mursal, a resident of a village Deynunay, told Shabelle.

In a teleconference he held the spokesman of Alshabab sheikh Moqtar Robow Abumansur has declared that they‘ve entirely wrestled the control of Deynunay.

“The Mujahidiin fighters have captured Deynunay from the “Puppets” and the enemy of Allah, we carry out some puppets with the Islamic sharia when they came in our hands” he said.

Residents told that the Islamist fighters have pulled out on early Thursday morning to unknown location.

Government official confirmed the fighting, accusing the Islamists of mounting the attack. "There is shelling everywhere... our forces are facing Islamists, and it’s going on," he told insidesomalia.org

"I can't tell you the casualties but there is fighting everywhere tonight," he said as the fighting was intensifying that forced the government troops to withthrow’ he added.

"The fighting is so heavy ... but I tell you that the government forces fled. And more than 10 armed vehicles of Alshabab fighters arrived in," deynunay resident Hashi Adan said, referring to clashes at Deynunay.

Since the Ethiopians helped the Somali transitional government to oust the Islamists in December 2006, Islamist fighters have used guerrilla warfare to target government installations, Ethiopian and AU troops in the capital.

The 2,400 strong AU force has been struggling with their peacekeeping efforts in Somalia and the AU has plans to increase the force to 8,000, however finding it difficult to recruit and finance these new troops.

An alliance of opposition groups based in Eritrea that includes the Islamists has signed peace deal with Somali government in Djibouti but Alshabab group has rebuffed the upshots of the talks saying that no talk’s outcome could work until the Ethiopian troops pull out from Somalia although in the agreement the two sides agreed that Ethiopian troops to leave Somalia within 120 days.

Somalia has been devastated by conflict since 1991 when the former President Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted.