**Militants have attacked African Union peacekeepers Somalia’s capital, as President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed celebrates a year in office.**At least 12 people, including civilians, are reported to have been killed in the violence in Mogadishu.
Islamist group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Some 200 Somali officials were listening to a poetry reading to mark President Ahmed’s anniversary as shells were landing nearby, AFP reports.
President Ahmed, a moderate Islamist and former insurgent leader, was elected after UN-sponsored talks in neighbouring Djibouti but his government remains weak.
He was declared the winner of an election by Somali MPs on 31 January 2009.
Al-Shabab, which is accused of links to al-Qaeda, controls most of southern Somalia, while the government, backed by the peacekeeping mission, is in charge of a few areas of Mogadishu.
An AU spokesman told the BBC that the attack was fairly routine but a Mogadishu resident told Reuters news agency it was the heaviest clashes the city has seen for several months.
Al-Shabab fighters attacked the AU base near the strategic K4 junction late on Thursday night.
The Islamist group said two of its fighters had been killed, along with an unknown number of AU and government troops.
“I don’t have the full figures but I know that three of the dead are a mother and her two children,” Mogadishu ambulance service head Ali Musa told AFP news agency.
The attack also comes a day after Djibouti said it would send 450 troops to bolster the 5,000-strong AU force from Uganda and Burundi.
Al-Shabab has been fighting a pro-government militia for control of the central town of Beledweyne in recent weeks.
Somalia has been wracked by violence for some 20 years.