Somali insurgents fired mortars toward US congressman Donald Payne as he left Somalia today after a rare visit by a US politician to the nation, police said.
Somali's internal security minister Omar Hashi Aden said Mr Payne's plane was airborne when the mortars fell. An African Union (AU) spokesman denied the attack on the airport - which is under AU control - had happened.
A police officer, however, said mortars struck the airport.
"One mortar landed at the airport when Payne's plane was due to fly and five others after he left, and no one was hurt," an officer at the airstrip said.
Residents said insurgents and AU soldiers exchanged fire after the attack, killing three people and wounding 12 others near a main market in Mogadishu.
Somalia's militant Islamist rebel group al Shabaab later said it was behind the mortar attack.
"We fired on the airport to target the so-called democratic congressman sent by (US president Barack) Obama," Sheikh Hussein Ali, an al Shabaab spokesman, said.
Mr Payne spoke with the interim government's president and prime minister during the short visit. AU soldiers provided security for Mr Payne.
He told reporters before leaving for the airport that he was there to "get a first hand report on the situation in Somalia and check the progress that has been made".
Mr Payne (74) a New Jersey Democrat, defended a recent US assault on pirates holding an American hostage off Somalia's coast that, observers fear, may escalate violence on the seas.
"If there were no pirates, the US government would not have intervened ... Every country has a right to defend its citizens," he said.
Somalia's capital Mogadishu is one of the world's most dangerous places. US officials have shunned travel to the city due to constant violence.
Reuters