Five people were injured when a car convoy evacuating the Russian ambassador to Iraq from Baghdad to Syria came under fire, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said late Sunday.

"Five people have been wounded. One has been operated, but he is now out of danger," Alexander Yakovenko told the Russian state-owned television Rossiya.

Yakovenko also denied earlier reports that Russian ambassador to Iraq Vladimir Titorenko had been injured.

"Russian ambassador Titorenko has not been injured, although he has been scratched," Yakovenko said.

A Russian journalist traveling with the group, Rossiya's correspondent Alexander Minakov, said US forces initiated the shooting.

Minakov said: "As we left the city (Baghdad) we passed through Iraqi forces who suddenly came under fierce fire. Shells exploded 50 to 70 metres (yards) from us followed by automatic arms fire.

"I am 100 percent sure the Americans were the first to open fire," he continued:

"The Iraqis obviously started shooting back and we were caught in a crossfire," the reporter added.

"The first three cars full of diplomats came under machine gun fire," Minakov reported: "The ambassador was lucky because a bullet went through the windscreen between the driver and him."

Minakov said they later approached US armoured vehicles, which ignored their request for medical assistance.

But US Central Command in Qatar said Iraqi forces controlled the area and "initial reports" indicated there were no US or British troops nearby.

In Washington, General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon was investigating.

"There was no reporting by any ground unit of the coalition of any kind of contact" with the motorcade.

US officials had been warned in advance that the convoy would be heading out, he told CNN.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell also called his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov to assure him that an investigation was underway.

The shooting is the latest in a series of incidents that have vexed US-Russian relations since the start of the war, which Moscow vehemently opposes, and came as US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice arrived in Moscow late Sunday for meetings with top Russia in an effort to improve ties.

Rice is to meet on Monday with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and Security Council chief Vladimir Rushailo, according to the Interfax news agency.

But a US official in Washington, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Sunday Rice would also meet Putin before travelling on to meet up with US President George W. Bush in northern Ireland on Monday or Tuesday.

Asked if Rice would follow up on Powell's phone call with Ivanov about the shooting incident, the official replied: "Absolutely, this will be discussed."

Russia was one of the last countries to keep its embassy in Baghdad open, but decided Saturday to pull out most of its diplomats as US troops closed in on Baghdad.

Moscow was set Monday to send a plane to Syria to meet the diplomatic coming from neighboring Iraq, the Russian emergencies ministry said Sunday.

The plane, carrying two doctors, drugs and medical equipment, was scheduled to leave Moscow for the Syrian capital Damascus at 11:00 am local time (07:00 am GMT), Rossiya quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

The convoy was spending the night at Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, to tend the wounded and would continue to Syria Monday, the Russian foreign ministry spokesman said

SPACE.WIRE