MOGADISHU, Somalia, October 12, 2007 - An army general, two magistrates and others have been assassinated in the past week in the Somali capital, the U.N.'s humanitarian coordination agency said Friday, highlighting Mogadishu's pervasive violence.

The assassinations show the difficulty the fragile government and its Ethiopian allies face in trying to bring order in Mogadishu, which has been wracked by violence this year. Thousands of civilians have died in the fighting.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs gathered the information on assassinations from its staff in Somalia as well as local media reports.

Also, unknown assailants attacked African Union peacekeepers in their base on Monday, but no one was injured, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. The attack had not been previously reported.

Four people were wounded on Thursday when unknown assailants fired a rocket at their Toyota pickup in the southern Somalia town of Buale, 410 kilometers (255 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, said Ali Dek, a resident.

Somalia 's U.N.-backed government has been struggling to assert authority since it chased an Islamic group out of the capital and its southern Somalia strongholds in December with the help of Ethiopian allies. The Islamic fighters vowed to fight an Iraq-style insurgency against the government and the Ethiopians.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when a group of warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre and then turned on each other. The Horn of Africa nation is deeply impoverished and split by clan rivalries.

Source: The Associated Press