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TBILISI - Tensions soared in Georgia's rebel region of South Ossetia on Friday after separatists said two people were killed by intense shelling and threatened to retaliate with heavy weapons.
Russia accused Tbilisi of carrying out an "act of aggression" against South Ossetia and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) expressed concern over the fighting -- the heaviest in the volatile region so far this year.
Irina Gagloyeva, a spokeswoman for South Ossetia's separatist government, said Georgian forces launched a large-scale attack on the region overnight, firing from three directions with mortars, grenade launchers and small arms.
Two people were killed and at least 10 wounded, the separatists said.
"If the shelling resumes, South Ossetia will respond with heavy weaponry," Gagloyeva said.
After initially announcing a general mobilisation of residents following the fighting, rebel officials later backed away from the move.
"There is no need for a general mobilisation. We have the forces and means necessary to deal with the illegal presence of armed formations on the territory of South Ossetia and on its borders," South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity said in comments posted on the rebel website.
Tensions have mounted in recent months over South Ossetia and another rebel region in ex-Soviet Georgia, Abkhazia, after Russia announced it was establishing formal ties with the separatists.
Backed by Moscow, the two regions have had de facto independence since breaking away from Tbilisi's control during wars in the early 1990s.
Georgia denied it had initiated the attack, saying its forces reacted after Georgian villages came under fire.
"Georgian forces only opened fire in response," interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP. He said there were no reports of casualties in Georgian-controlled areas.
"These attacks are a continuation of the aggressive acts that started yesterday with the attack on Dmitry Sanakoyev," he said, in reference to a pro-Georgian official who was targeted by a roadside bomb on Thursday.
Sanakoyev escaped uninjured, but three of his bodyguards were wounded.
Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement that "Tbilisi's actions represented an overt act of aggression against South Ossetia," while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged Georgia to sign a non-aggression pact with the separatists.
"We are seriously concerned by the latest events in South Ossetia.... We must persuade Tbilisi to sign a legally binding document guaranteeing non-aggression," the Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying during a visit to Turkmenistan.
The OSCE, which monitors a ceasefire in South Ossetia, expressed "profound concern" over the fighting and a series of explosions earlier this week in Abkhazia.
The incidents "are worrying signs of growing tension," the OSCE's chairman, Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, said in a statement.
On Thursday, the separatists had blamed Georgian special forces for a bomb that killed a South Ossetian police chief outside his home.
Abkhazia's de facto foreign minister, Sergei Shamba, said his region was prepared to assist South Ossetia and had sent troops to Abkhazia's border with the rest of Georgia following the fighting.
"If provocations do not end or military action intensifies, we won't just sit there," he told Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency.
Fighting in South Ossetia, a patchwork of Ossetian and Georgian settlements in the mountainous north of the country, generally intensifies during the summer months.
Tbilisi accuses Russia of seeking to annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia and derail its efforts to join the NATO military alliance. Russia in turn accuses Georgia of preparing to take back the breakaway regions by force.
Abkhazia closed its border with the rest of Georgia earlier this week after 10 people were wounded in a string of explosions the rebels blamed on Tbilisi.
- AFP /ls
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