Vladimir Titorenko and his staff went to the Russian embassy here after passing through the Al-Tanaf border post, and were to leave for Moscow later Monday aboard a special flight, a diplomatic source said.

Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reported, "The Russian ambassador to Iraq Vladimir Titorenko thinks that the column of Russian cars, filled with diplomats and journalists, was deliberately attacked by the Americans."

It said that four cars in the convoy had been hit in the attack, which badly wounded a driver.

The report further accused US forces of trying to stop the Russian convoy for inspections several times, "but these attempts were thwarted by the Russian diplomats."

US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice assured President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Monday that if US troops had indeed shot at the convoy, then no harm had been intended, a senior US official said.

But the official stressed this did not mean Washington accepted that US forces were to blame.

The convoy was apparently caught in crossfire but there have been conflicting reports as to whether US or Iraqi forces shot first.

A senior US official in Washington conceded that US troops probably fired at the Russian diplomats but suggested that Iraq set up the incident by changing the convoy's planned route.

SPACE.WIRE