NAIROBI, Kenya – Gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Mogadishu’s main airport on Thursday afternoon, shortly after a high-level United Nations delegation met with Somali officials there in an attempt to resolve an escalating internal political dispute.

Witnesses said a Toyota sedan exploded at the airport gates after it was stopped by a guard. Another carload of attackers – dressed in government military fatigues, a tactic used in a hotel attack last month – arrived shortly afterward. The attackers jumped out of their car and started shooting wildly, witnesses said. At least one of the attackers detonated an explosive vest.

United Nations officials said that nine people were killed, among them four attackers, three civilians and two African Union peacekeepers, but that none of the United Nations officials inside the airport were harmed.

The United Nations team, led by the new United Nations special representative for Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, had arrived earlier on Thursday to try to overcome a recent falling out between Somalia’s president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, and the prime minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, that has paralyzed Somalia’s transitional government.

Earlier this year Sheik Sharif tried to oust the prime minister, but he had to back down after Somalia’s Parliament failed to support him. It seems the president is trying once again to fire Mr. Sharmarke, who has been widely criticized, along with just about everyone else in the Somali government, including Sheik Sharif, for not delivering services and steadily losing territory to Islamist militants. United Nations officials and Western diplomats, including American diplomats, have urged the two men to concentrate on protecting Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, and to resolve their personal differences later.

This past month has been especially violent. The Shabab insurgent group has been waging an offensive to coincide with Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, which is drawing to a close this week. So far more than 200 people have been killed, including several government lawmakers.

Somalia’s military has been nearly invisible during the recent fighting, with almost all combat being handled by African Union troops; there are about 7,000 in Mogadishu. United Nations officials said the commander of Somalia’s armed forces, Gen. Mohamed Gelle Kahiye, is likely to lose his job in the coming days because of the military’s dismal performance. General Kahiye earned a lasting reputation as a solid officer from his time as a colonel in Somalia’s army decades ago. He returned to lead the armed forces after a period in Germany, where he was an assistant manager at a McDonald’s.

According to one high-ranking Somali official, only a fraction of the more than 10,000 Somali soldiers and police officers being paid by the United States, the Italian government and the United Nations have shown up during recent battles.

“On paydays we have almost 20,000 soldiers,” said the official, who asked not to be identified. “When there’s a battle, we can’t find 100.”