(Updates casualties, quotes)

By Sahal Abdulle

MOGADISHU, March 18 (Reuters) - Mortar rounds crashed down on areas of Mogadishu on Sunday, wounding at least eight people in the latest violence to shake Somalia's coastal capital. A government source, who asked not to be named, said insurgents fired at least six mortar rounds from a northeastern neighbourhood, near the Indian Ocean.

Near-daily guerrilla violence has been blamed on hardline remnants of an Islamist movement defeated two months ago.

The interim government says the coming fortnight will be crucial in proving it can tame one of the world's most dangerous cities in time to hold a peace meeting of clan leaders, elders and former warlords there next month.

"A few of them hit near the headquarters of the police transport unit," the government source said by telephone.

"One soldier suffered minor wounds, and three civilians were injured. We do not know yet how seriously they were hurt."

One woman living near the city centre, Binti Ahmed, said four other people were wounded in the midday strikes. "Two mortars landed near my home. One hit a restaurant and others went over our heads towards the sea port," she said.

U.N. aid agencies working in Somalia say more than 40,000 people fled Mogadishu in February alone.

African peacekeepers from Uganda have also been ambushed, along with Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies.

Last Monday, parliament voted overwhelmingly to move to Mogadishu from its temporary base in the inland city of Baidoa.

But a day later, mortar rounds slammed into the capital's presidential compound, just hours after President Abdullahi Yusuf returned to the city.

His prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, met diplomats in neighbouring Kenya on Wednesday to appeal for more than $30 million to host the reconciliation meeting on April 16.

He said the next two weeks would be "a test", on whether the government could prove it could host the gathering in Mogadishu.

(Additional reporting by Farah Roble)

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