Shelling Increases Tension in Breakaway Georgian Region

Heavy shelling and exchanges of small-arms fire were reported in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia late Thursday, a sharp escalation of the standoff that has accompanied Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s pledge to unite his fractured nation.

Trouble has been brewing for weeks in South Ossetia, which lies in the Caucasus Mountains along Georgia’s border with Russia. Tensions also have increased between Georgia and Russia, which maintains peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia and sympathizes with the breakaway region’s desire to become part of Russia. The adjacent republic of North Ossetia is in Russia.

South Ossetian officials said that artillery fire and rocket-propelled grenades began raining down on Tskhinvali, the regional capital, at 11 p.m. and that the barrage lasted 80 minutes.

“It was a very heavy shelling. It was then stopped for about 10 minutes, and a bit later resumed, but with less intensity,” Zurab Kokoyev, South Ossetia’s first vice premier, said in a telephone interview. “Since then, it has been going on and off, periodically dying away and resuming again.”

At least two civilians were reportedly wounded in the attack. The Georgian government did not confirm the reports of injuries.

Givi Gugutsidze, a Georgian who is co-chief of peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia, told the news agency Itar-Tass that shortly before midnight South Ossetian forces began firing on a Georgian-controlled village outside Tskhinvali.

Forces in the village returned fire, but there were no reports of injuries, Gugutsidze said.

War broke out in 1991 when South Ossetia first declared independence from Georgia, but it subsided when former Georgian President Eduard A. Shevardnadze offered the region substantial autonomy and dropped the push to incorporate it into the rest of Georgia.

Most of South Ossetia’s 70,000 residents hold Russian passports and, unlike other Caucasian ethnic communities, have historically friendly relations with Russia.

Saakashvili, however, has made it clear that establishing federal control over all of Georgia’s territory will be a priority. After reestablishing control over the Black Sea region of Adzharia this year, Saakashvili turned his attention to two other trouble spots: South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

This month, Georgian troops seized two Russian trucks loaded with weapons, including more than 100 missiles, that the Russians said were headed for a peacekeeping helicopter unit. A Russian helicopter flew across the Georgian border from Chechnya on July 10, prompting a sharp warning from Saakashvili two days later.

“The current crisis in South Ossetia is not a problem between Georgians and Ossetians,” the Georgian president said. “This is a problem between Georgia and Russia.”

South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity, who was in Moscow on Wednesday for consultations, said that more than 90% of the population voted in a 1992 referendum for independence from Georgia.

“The South Ossetian people’s struggle for independence is not for sale, and our people’s plans to reunite with North Ossetia and join the Russian Federation are not a matter for the bargaining table,” Kokoity told reporters.

Kokoyev, the vice premier, said the shelling Thursday occurred during a large open-air concert.

“We believe those who opened fire ... knew very well that the concert was being held, and they were deliberately targeting those who came to attend the event,” he said. He said the concert was canceled after the shelling began. He said Tskhinvali police returned fire and repelled a ground attack.