MP's near miss in Iraq

Clwyd was one of the few left wing MPs in favour of war

Labour MP Ann Clwyd narrowly escaped injury when the convoy she was travelling in near Kirkuk in Iraq came close to an ambush by bandits.

Ms Clywd - who is Tony Blair's human rights envoy in the country - told staff in her Westminster office that shots had been fired but she was uninjured.

She said: "Shots were certainly fired at people coming towards us.

"We stopped short of that. We were given a warning.

"Then the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters, and the Americans went after them."

The bandits are believed to have escaped into nearby hills.

Ms Clwyd backed war with Iraq on the grounds of the human rights record of Saddam Hussein's regime, which she compared with Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge.

In 1991 she became the first MP to highlight the plight of Kurdish refugees fleeing attack from Saddam's forces.

She is a founder of Indict which sought to bring criminal charges against the former Iraqi leader under international laws.

Her job in Iraq is to gather information about human rights violations and to report back to the prime minister.

She arrived there last week.