At least eight people have died in a day of violence in Somalia which saw mortars² fired at MPs meeting for the first time since August.

索马里自8月份以来首次发生使用迫击炮炮轰议员会议事件，此次冲突造成至少8人丧生。

No MPs were killed in the attack but witnesses say three civilians³ died as government forces retaliated⁴报复，回敬 and shells hit a radio station.

A separate roadside bomb killed at least five people, officials say.

Hard-line Islamist groups are battling Somalia's UN-backed government, which controls only a few parts of Mogadishu.

The BBC's Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu says the mortar迫击炮 attack spread fear among MPs.

But he says the parliament is a concrete building protected by African Union tanks and hundreds of government troops - so the MPs were not in as much danger as people outside the compound.

Eyewitnesses⁵ said three shells hit a local radio station, killing⁶ the station director's wife and two other people.

At least 17 people were injured by the mortars混凝土，砂浆.

Earlier in the day a roadside bomb targeted the car of a government minister, who had defected from背叛，逃脱 the insurgency⁷. The minister was not in the car at the time, but five other people were killed.

The day of violence comes weeks after a suicide bomber⁸ killed three ministers at a ceremony for newly graduated doctors.

Rebels from the al-Shabab沙巴布，青年党 group have denied carrying out that attack but have been behind other suicide attacks on government targets.

They are accused of links to al-Qaeda.

Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.