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A US congressman has had a narrow escape on a visit to Mogadishu after Somali insurgents fired mortars towards his plane as it was about to take off. Airport officials told the BBC one mortar had landed near the airport as Donald Payne's plane was due to fly and five others after his plane departed.

The al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the mortar attack. "We carried out mortar attacks against the enemy of Allah who arrived to spread democracy in Somalia," a spokesman for the group named as Sheikh Husein Ali Fidow was quoted as saying by AFP news agency. "This government is welcoming America, which is our prime enemy and we will never stop attacking them."