The top US military commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, narrowly escaped an attack in a flashpoint Iraqi city, while a UN team steered a middle course on demands by the country's Shiite Muslim majority for early elections. A convoy carrying Abizaid, the head of US Central Command, and Major General Charles Swannack, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, was targetted with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) as it travelled through Fallujah, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the capital, said US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt. The attack is the second against a high ranking US official in Iraq since major combat was declared over on May 1. US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz escaped a rocket attack on his hotel while on a visit to Baghdad in October. "Three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at their convoy from the rooftops in the vicinity," Kimmitt, the deputy coalition operations chief, told a press conference. "No soldiers or civilians were injured and both coalition and Iraqi civil defence soldiers returned fire and pursued the attackers," Kimmitt said. "A local mosque was thought to be harbouring the attackers, and Iraqi Civil Defence soldiers conducted a search of the mosque without result," he said. Kimmitt denied that Abizaid and Swannack were direct targets in the attack. In Fallujah, police Lieutenant Omar Duleimi said two Iraqi men were killed shortly after the attack, but it was not clear whether they had been involved. Duleimi said US soldiers opened fire on the two, who were in car, after they shifted quickly into reverse and backed away from a US military checkpoint. Earlier, the US military announced that two US soldiers had been killed and four others wounded in two attacks in Baghdad. One soldier was killed and two wounded by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on Wednesday night. Three more soldiers were wounded in a mortar attack Thursday afternoon on a coalition base in the Iraqi capital. The latest deaths bring to 257 the number of American soldiers killed in combat in Iraq since US President George W. Bush declared the end to major hostilities. A mortar round also exploded near where Japanese troops are deployed in the southern city of Samawa, but there were no casualties, a Japanese officer said. The mortar blast was the first attack in the region since Japanese troops deployed in Iraq last Sunday. The Japanese contingent now numbers about 70 men. A total of 600 ground troops are to be deployed by the end of March, with logistic support from around 400 air force and naval personnel in the region.