The radical Islamist Al-Shabaab group has taken over a central Somali town following heavy fighting with local religious sect which left nearly 12 dead and 18 others wounded while thousands fled the town, residents said on Saturday.

The fighting, which has been sporadically continuing for the past two days, erupted after the hardline Islamist group arrested a member of a local religious sect in Guriel in the central province of Galgadud, 370 km north of the capital, Mogadishu.

"Seven people died in today's fighting and those who died are innocent civilians," Haji Muse Abdi, a local elder told Xinhua by phone from Guriel. "I was also told that five combatants from both sides have been killed for the past two days."

Eight people were wounded in the fighting on Saturday while for the past two days, ten others were separately injured, most of them civilians caught in the cross fire as they fled to the woods around the small town, residents said.

Thousands of local residents and refugees who fled from the violence in the Somali capital of Mogadishu have left the town to the surrounding woods for safety.

Al-Shabaab fighters have been reportedly patrolling the deserted streets of the town after chasing out men from the local Ahlu Sunnah Waljameah sect who took up arms against the group's fighters.

Different Islamist insurgent groups are in control of much of south and central Somalia including the southern town of Elasha Biyaha, just 17 km north of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Somali government forces and the African Union peacekeepers are in control of only Mogadishu and the southern town of Baidoa, the seat of the transitional parliament.