Three Georgian soldiers have been killed and five wounded in clashes in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia, Rustavi 2 television reported early yesterday, quoting an unnamed official with the Georgian interior ministry.
Only one of the wounded could be evacuated from the combat zone, due to the intensity of the overnight fighting between Georgian and South Ossetian forces, Rustavi 2 said.
Georgian and South Ossetian forces overnight accused each other of trying to storm the other side's positions in the breakaway region.
South Ossetia's deputy defense minister late Tuesday said Georgian forces were mounting an assault on a village near the Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, Interfax news agency reported.
"Two Georgian armored units and a large quantity of infantry are attacking the village of Sarabuk," as well as other Ossetian positions nearby, Ibragim Gassiyev said. Georgian forces also shelled Tskhinvali, Gassiyev added early Wednesday.
But the local head of Georgian police told reporters that Ossetian forces were trying to storm a road linking villages populated by ethnic Georgians in South Ossetia to mainland Georgia.
"The Ossetians are launching an assault on this road. We are trying to return fire," Aleko Sukhitashvili said.
Georgia's defense minister said that, following the overnight fighting, there was no way Tbilisi would withdraw its forces from the conflict zone.
"After this night's shooting and attacks, there can be no question of any withdrawal of Georgian forces from the zone of conflict," Interfax quoted Georgi Baramidze as saying.
Earlier Tuesday, a Georgian soldier was killed and three others were wounded as both Georgian and South Ossetian officials blamed an unnamed "third hand" for stoking the conflict.
"Today military from both sides looked for the so-called `batmen' in the conflict zone," said Lev Mironov, a Russian representative in a joint commission trying to mediate the conflict.
"They need to be captured by joint efforts and be put behind bars or destroyed," Mironov said.
Baramidze said that "there is a well-prepared armed group of about 15-20 people in the conflict zone -- the South Ossetian side agrees with this. During the night they shoot at positions of both sides, trying to provoke all-out war."
Said South Ossetian representative Boris Chochiyev: "There is a third side that wants war and we must neutralize them together with Russian peacekeepers."
The spiraling violence in the volatile region prompted Georgian leader Mikhail Saakashvili to call for international peacekeepers to provide security for civilians and ensure that conditions for talks on a permanent settlement were met.
"An international peacekeeping operation that is balanced and takes into consideration Georgia's Euro-Atlantic partners should be mandated in South Ossetia to provide security for the population and ensure the conditions for political negotiations towards a lasting settlement," Saakashvili said in an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal Europe.
Tuesday's clashes also led to a telephone conversation between US Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, as US diplomats met with Russian and Georgian officials in an effort to cool tensions, according to the Russian foreign ministry.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS