The Islamic militiamen drove the warlords away from an area of southern Mogadishu, where the Sahafi Hotel is located, resident Saidia Mohamed said.

"The battle is continuing, I'm talking to you from under my bed and you can hear sounds of heavy gunfire and mortars," a panic-stricken Mohamed said, speaking on her mobile phone.

On Wednesday, the rival militiamen renewed fighting in northern Mogadishu for a few hours during which at least six people were killed and another six seriously wounded, witnesses and medical workers said.

More than 140 people ¡ª most noncombatants caught in the crossfire ¡ª were killed in eight days of fighting in Mogadishu earlier this month.

Somalia has been embroiled in some of the worst fighting in more than a decade in recent weeks.

The fundamentalists portray themselves as capable of bringing order to the country, which has been without a real government since largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The Islamic militia's growth in popularity and strength, and the possibility that they have outside support, is reminiscent of the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

The secular alliance, which includes members of a U.N.-backed interim government but acts independently of it, accuses the Islamic militiamen of having ties to al-Qaida. The Islamic group accuses the secularists of being puppets of the United States.

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, president of Somalia's near-powerless transitional national government, told The Associated Press earlier this month that he believes Washington is supporting the secular militia as a way of fighting several senior al-Qaida operatives who are protected by radical clerics in Somalia. He called on Washington to instead work only with his government.