"I was coming back from Najaf, where I had met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani the previous day, and when we reached Latifiya, a car started following us and opened fire on our convoy," said Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress.

"Two of my bodyguards were wounded, one of them seriously," said Chalabi, speaking ahead of the first meeting of Iraq's interim parliament in Baghdad.

Latifiya is a town south of Baghdad which commands access to the main road heading to the holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala on which drive-by shootings and kidnappings are frequent.

Chalabi, a leading figure of the exiled opposition to Saddam Hussein before the US-led invasion, fell out of favour with his US protectors over suspicion of leaking intelligence to Iran.