unmen fired mortars at the Somali president's house on Sunday, hours after the country's new prime minister arrived in Mogadishu for the first time since he was sworn in last November, a presidential aide said.

"At least five mortar rounds have been fired at the president's house, where the prime minister is now staying, but they missed," a presidential aide told Reuters on condition of anonymity. He did not know of any casualties.

Somalia's parliament picked Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein in November to replace his unpopular predecessor Ali Mohamed Gedi, who quit last year over a feud with President Abdullahi Yusuf.

"We will be engaged in reconciliation ... We will adopt a national system and try to secure Mogadishu by talking to the rebels," Hussein told journalists at the airport.

Seen as a neutral figure in an often fractious political scene, Hussein's challenge is to help bring unity to a country in which fighting has displaced a million people.