Insurgents Attack UN in Mogadishu, No Injuries

`Fortunately no one was hurt as none of the employees were present at the time,` the U.N. source told Reuters by telephone.

Suspected Islamist insurgents hurled at least seven grenades at a United Nations compound in Mogadishu but no one was hurt, a U.N. source said on Saturday.

The source said the attackers struck at the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) offices several times overnight after ordering residents in the area to switch off their lights late on Friday.

"Fortunately no one was hurt as none of the employees were present at the time," the U.N. source told Reuters by telephone. UNDP officials in Somalia's capital did not immediately comment.

The interim government and its Ethiopian military allies are facing a persistent insurgency in Mogadishu by remnants of a hardline Islamist movement they routed just over a year ago.

In a separate attack late on Friday, officials said three men armed with pistols shot dead a district commissioner in Wabari, a southern Mogadishu neighbourhood. Local rights workers say fighting in the capital killed 6,500 people last year.