Georgia accused rebels yesterday of forcing down a helicopter carrying the defense minister and narrowly missing in an attack on another helicopter transporting President Mikheil Saakashvili and a delegation of US senators.
Tensions rose yesterday in the rebel province of South Ossetia, on the border of ex-Soviet Georgia and Russia, with both separatist forces and a Russian peacekeeping contingent announcing that they were on heightened alert, Russian news agencies said.
Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Okruashvili said that his Mi-8 helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing on Sunday after taking fire over South Ossetia.
Officials in South Ossetia, a Russian-backed province that ousted Georgian authorities in the early 1990s, claimed to have shot down the Mi-8 helicopter. However, Okruashvili said the aircraft had returned safely to base.
"Our helicopter took some hits. It made an emergency landing [in South Ossetia] and then returned to its base," Okruashvili told reporters after returning to the Georgian capital.
Separately, the Georgian interior ministry revealed yesterday that an attempt had been made on Aug. 28 to down the helicopter carrying Saakashvili and a team of US lawmakers led by Republican Senator John McCain.
"A Strela-2 anti-aircraft missile was fired at the helicopter over the [Ossetian] village of Avnevi," it said in a statement. "The shell exploded a short distance from the helicopter."
The ministry said that pieces of the Russian-made surface-to-air rocket had been found and handed over to US officials.
South Ossetia's unrecognized government confirmed shooting at Okruashvili's helicopter, but issued no statement on the alleged attack against Saakashvili and the US senators.
"A Georgian helicopter which had on several occasions violated our air space was shot down," Irina Gagloeva, spokeswoman for the separatist regime, said in reference to Sunday's incident.
Saakashvili, who came to power after a peaceful revolution in 2003, has made restoring central control over South Ossetia and another strategic rebel province on Russia's border, Abkhazia, top priorities.
Rebel authorities in both regions, however, say that they are ready to repulse any Georgian military incursion.
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