Al Shabaab, an al Qaeda franchise, claimed responsibility for two car bombs that blew up outside the education ministry in Mogadishu on Oct. 29, the deadliest incident since a truck bomb killed more than 500 people at the same location five years previously.
The group has killed tens of thousands of people in bombings since 2006 in their fight to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed central government.
Al Shabaab has been under pressure since August, when President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud began a concerted offensive against them, supported by the United States and clan militias are known locally known as macawisley, or "men with sarongs".
The fighting took place in the villages of Garas Magan and El Hareeri on Thursday, defence ministry spokesman Abdullahi Ali Anod said.
El Hareeri is about 15 km (9 miles) from the strategic town Adan-yabal of Middle Shabelle province, which security forces captured earlier this week, according to a report by Somalia's state news agency.
Al Shabaab said they killed dozens of army soldiers and macawisley fighters in fierce clashes on Thursday, and that eight of their own fighters were killed in an air strike they blamed on the United States.
MNA/PR