Soviet Troops Seize Weapons in South
Soviet troops, tackling ethnic clashes along the country’s southern rim, have seized 44,000 firearms and 1.2 million rounds of ammunition in the region this year, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
The figures, published by the Tass news agency, give an indication of the magnitude of the task faced by tens of thousands of border troops in volatile Transcaucasia.
The violence has focused mainly on the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, claimed by neighboring Armenia. Soviet troops in recent weeks have been raiding Armenian villages in the region to disarm militant groups. Dozens of people, mostly Armenians, have been killed.
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