Somalia's government has sent about 600 extra troops to reinforce part of southern Mogadishu, where the Horn of Africa nation's main airport is based.
This follows reports that fighters from the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia have moved into the Medina district.
Some civilians are fleeing the area, once one of the city's safest and a refuge for tens of thousands who had fled other parts of the war-torn city.
Some 60,000 people have fled the recent upsurge of fighting in Mogadishu.
About 200 people are thought to have been killed since the beginning of May, as the guerrillas try to topple the fragile interim administration.
President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist elected by a unity government in January as part of a UN-backed peace initiative, has ordered a fight-back against the guerrillas.
He says al-Shabab, accused of having links to al-Qaeda, has in its ranks foreigners who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hardline Islamist groups want to impose a stricter version of Islamic law and demand that the 4,300-strong AU peacekeeping force leaves Somalia.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991 and years of fighting have left some three million people - a third of the population - needing food aid.
Source: BBC
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