Somalian President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed escaped uninjured Sunday when Islamic insurgents attacked him as he travelled to Dijbouti, where United Nations-backed peace talks are taking place, officials said, dpa reported.
The president's convoy was first attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic fire as it approached Mogadishu airport. Five mortar shells then rained down on the airport, targeting the president's plane.
"There was an attack on the president's convoy but there were no casualties and the president is fine," Hussein Mohamoud Hubsired, Yusuf's spokesman, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
"Insurgents wanted to disturb the president's departure to Djibouti. They failed," he added.
Five civilians were reported injured in the first gun battle, and the president's spokesman said a Ugandan peacekeeper was injured at the airport. However, a spokesman for the UN mission in Somalia said none of his troops had been hurt.
Yusuf was travelling to Dijbouti to meet a delegation from the UN Security Council, which is beginning a tour of many of Africa's hot spots.
UN-backed peace talks, which are seen as crucial in bringing an end to the battle between the transitional Somali government and Islamic insurgents got underway on Sunday.
The two sides, however, are far from reaching a peace deal as the opposition is demanding that Ethiopian troops leave Somalia completely before any kind of peace can be achieved.
The Union of Islamic Courts controlled Mogadishu for around six months in 2006 before being driven out by government and Ethiopian troops, sparking an insurgency that aid agencies say has cost the lives of around 6,000 civilians.
The militant group al-Shabaab, the armed wing of the opposition Union of Islamic Courts, has vowed to step up attacks on foreign troops and civilians after a US airstrike killed its leader, Aden Hashi Ayro, in early May.
Somalia has been in a state of anarchy since the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. It has been without an effective central authority, leading to constant inter-clan clashes.