The official says the Islamists are in control of the town of Gal Gala, which is 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of the port of Bosasso, the commercial hub of the semiautonomous northern region of Puntland.
The official said nine soldiers and six insurgents had been killed in Wednesday's fighting and that government forces were regrouping to launch a counterattack. He asked not to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
The insurgents are led by Sheik Ali Gamey, linked to arms dealer Mohamed Atom, who the U.N. accuses of supplying weapons to Somalia's al-Shabab militia in the south. The town used to be a base for Atom's fighters.
Gamey was a member of al-Itihad, an Islamist group active in Somalia in the 1990s. Puntland police arrested him last year but he was later freed on bail.
Somalia has not had a functioning government for more than 20 years. The current phase of the civil war pits Islamist insurgents against a weak U.N.-backed government, but the conflict is complicated by clan loyalties, corruption and the involvement of regional rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea.



