Posted on 08/27/2002 2:28:53 PM PDT by knighthawk
MOSCOW — Georgia on Monday sent hundreds of heavily armed Interior Ministry troops into its Pankisi Gorge, a crime-infested area where Moscow says Tbilisi has allowed Chechen rebels and foreign Islamic militants to set up bases.
In a parallel operation, 1,500 army troops — under the command of officers who have had U.S. anti-terrorism training — began exercises in the Akhmeta district near the southern edge of the gorge.
"The anti-criminal operation first and foremost is aimed at bringing order to the Pankisi Gorge and cleansing it of criminals and terrorists should they be there," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze said on Georgian national television, Interfax reported.
The gorge, which borders Chechnya, has long been a focus of tension between Georgia and Russia. The tension soared Friday when Georgia accused Russian aircraft of crossing some 80 kilometers into Georgian territory that morning and bombing villages in the gorge, killing one person and wounding five.
The Russian military denied bombing Georgian territory. But the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which maintains patrols on the border, said its staff saw the planes, The Associated Press reported.
Washington also came down on Georgia's side, with U.S. President George W Bush's spokesman issuing a strongly worded statement all but accusing Russia of lying.
"The United States strongly supports Georgia's independence and territorial integrity, and has welcomed similar statements by the Russian Federation," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Sunday. "Yesterday's attacks and their denial by the Russian government, however, belie such Russian assurances."
Georgian officials have not said how many Interior Ministry troops were sent into the Pankisi Gorge. But NTV showed footage of a convoy of tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks filled with troops heading into the gorge, and said there were about 200 vehicles in all.
Lasha Natsvlishvili, the deputy minister of state security, promised there would be no so-called "zachistki," or sweeps, to round up criminals. This was a clear comparison to Chechnya, where federal troops have been accused of systemic abuses, from looting to torture and murder, in sweeping villages for suspected rebels.
"Identifying and detaining criminals will be done according to existing intelligence information," Natsvlishvili was quoted as saying.
At any moment, the 1,500 Georgian army troops deployed in the military exercises, dubbed Kakheti-2002, may join the police operation in the gorge if needed, Georgian Defense Minister David Tevzadze said on RTR television. Tevzadze had told Interfax earlier that soldiers would not enter villages in the gorge.
The exercises, scheduled to last three weeks, are intended to test cooperation between the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and border guards in securing border areas, Tevzadze said.
Russia has long pressured Georgia to allow it to conduct a military operation in the region or provide military support, but Georgia has refused.
In the latest appeal for cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday welcomed Tbilisi's intentions to bring order to the gorge but said it disagreed with Georgia's tactics of "peacefully pushing terrorists out" toward the Russian border.
"Terrorists must be blockaded, disarmed and handed over to the Russian side," the ministry said in a statement quoted by Interfax. "Russia is prepared to give Georgia all the necessary cooperation it needs in solving this problem."
The same day, a spokesman for Russia's border guards in the North Caucasus said a group of some 250 Chechen rebels headed by warlord Ruslan Gelayev was moving from the Pankisi Gorge toward Chechnya.
A spokesman for the federal border guards in Moscow, said that, according to their intelligence, Gelayev's detachment was near the Russian-Georgian border. He said investigators did not discount the possibility that Gelayev's men had killed eight Russian border guards who were found dead Saturday in Ingushetia near the Georgian border. Two more border guards from the same unit were still missing, he said.
But Ingush Deputy Interior Minister Khamatkan Albakov said that the border guards may have been killed by their two missing colleagues, Itar-Tass reported.
Meanwhile in Chechnya, fighting between troops and a large rebel band persisted for a third day Sunday near the village of Bamut in the western Achkoi-Martan district. (The Moscow Times)
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