Military conflict looms between Georgia and South Ossetia

Jul 8, 2008, 18:15 GMT

Moscow/Tbilisi - Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia are gearing for a military conflict, Russian media reports said Tuesday after both sides began evacuating children from the area.

A spokesman for South Ossetia President Dmitry Medoyev accused Georgia of preparing to invade the territory, which declared its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, resulting in a bloody conflict that killed hundreds of people.

The pro-Western Georgian leadership has said it is determined to bring the breakaway region, along with the rebel region of Abkhazia, back under Tbilisi's control.

The South Ossetian spokesman said Georgia was strengthening military fortifications and surveillance operations, the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti said.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused Russia on Tuesday of contributing to the increased tension in the region by providing support to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Moscow used a mandate from former Soviet republics linked in the Commonwealth of Independent States to increase its troop presence in the region, a move criticized by Georgia.

Rice, who spoke in Prague ahead of a visit to Georgia on Wednesday, urged the Kremlin to avoid provocative actions, media in the Georgian capital Tbilisi reported.

Four Georgian soldiers were briefly detained in South Ossetia on Tuesday after paying what Georgian officials said was a visit to a family they knew there. South Ossetia claimed the men were spying.

Abkhazia has promised to come to the support of South Ossetia in the event of a Georgian military attack.

A series of bomb attacks and clashes in the two regions have left six dead and dozens injured in the past few days.