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Russia seizes S Ossetia as wider conflict feared

Georgia quits breakaway region

AFP, Tbilisi
Russian troops backed by tanks and fighter jets seized control of South Ossetia yesterday as fears grew of a wider conflict with Georgia over the separatist region.
Georgia said it had withdrawn most of its troops from South Ossetia in the face of a build-up in Russian firepower and that it had lost control of the near-destroyed regional capital, Tskhinvali.
International condemnation grew as Georgia claimed that Russian jets had bombed near the capital Tbilisi for the first time, targeting a military airfield.
As diplomatic efforts intensified to bring an end to the crisis, officials in Tbilisi said Moscow had begun bombing Georgian territory in and around another restive province, Abkhazia.
Georgian Reintegration Minister Temur Yakobashvili told
journalists that Georgia's western city of Zugdidi was being bombed and that Russian batdeshlps had been moved to the nearby Black Sea.
"Zugdidi is now being bombed," Yakobashvili said at a press briefing.
There was no confirmation from Moscow about action near Abkhazia. Russian officials said they were in control of Tskhinvali but added that Georgia still had about 7,400 servicemen, 100 tanks and artillery pieces in the area.
AFP reporters witnessed Russian attack helicopters hover ing over the area near Tskhinvali and a stream of people were fleeing the devastation carrying their belongings.
"We're being driven away. The place was in flames and we couldn't stay." Pavlik, an elderly man travelling by foot, told AFP as he fled from the conflict zone.
Russia puts the death toll from hostilities that broke out last week at 2,000 while Georgia estimates range from 92 to 150.
Russia backs the separatist government in South Ossetia and sent in tanks and troops on Friday in response to pro-Western Georgia's military offensive to take back the province which broke away in the early 1990s after a separatist war.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who is due in Tbilisi later Sunday to begin mediation, warned in an interview of a Balkan-like spiral of violence in tire conflict between Russia and Georgia.
"We are facing an escalation of violence" that is "unacceptable at the doors of Europe," Kouchner told Le Parisien newspaper as he prepared to leave for the region to mediate with Moscow and Tbilisi.
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“This reminds me all too much of other recent conflicts that have torn our continent apart, particularly in the Balkans," he said.
Georgia said it had withdrawn most o! its troops from South Ossetia and claimed Moscow had brought in 10,000 extra troops as well as building up a force of armoured vehicles on the Russian side of the border with Georgia.
"We have left practically all of South Ossetia as an expression of goodwill and our willingness to stop military confrontation," Georgian National Security-Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia told AFP
"We have asked United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to mediate with the Russians, to transmit them our message," said Lomaia.
The White House responded using strong diplomatic language, warning Russia that its "disproportionate and dangerous escalation' of the conflict could significantly harm relations between Washington and Moscow.
The United States said Sunday that Russia's reaction to any Georgian withdrawal from South Ossetia would be a key test of the country's true intentions in the region.
President George W. Bush on Saturday had led a chorus of international calls to end the hostilities which observers fear might spread to other parts of the volatile Caucasus region.
The movement ofRussia's naval fleet from their base in Ukraine to positions near Georgia also threatened to destabilise the region.
Ukraine's foreign ministry threatened to prevent the warships from returning to their base in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol.
A Russian press report claimed the battleships were preparing to implement a sea blockade on Georgia, but this was denied in Moscow.
South Ossetian authorities said in a statement that overnight shelling had killed 20 and wounded 150 people in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, which Russian Forces now control.