Georgia planned acts of terrorism against peacekeepers?

State Security Committee of South Ossetia declares that the law enforcement bodies of the non-recognized republic have managed to prevent a number of wide-range acts of terrorism against the peacekeepers, planned by the Georgian security services, news agency Interfax reports today, AxisGlobe.com reported. The KGB of South Ossetia claims that Georgian secret services were going to use Chechen insurgents and foreign mercenaries to fulfill their plans, Interfax adds.

The South Ossetia side said that "a heavily-armed four-member Georgian saboteur-terrorist squad was liquidated" in a clash at dawn on October 31 near the village of Sinaguri, which is located in the north-west of the breakaway South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, online magazine Civil Georgia notes. But later the South Ossetian side reported the group was composed of "Chechen militants" who infiltrated the breakaway region's territory from a Georgian-controlled area. Some officials in Tbilisi described reports about South Ossetia clash which reportedly killed four armed men as "disinformation," while officials in Tskhinvali announced that they are pulling out from talks and accused the Georgian side of "state terrorism," Civil Georgia reports.

The Russian state-run television station Rossiya showed footage from the alleged scene of clash, showing a corpse, explosives, Kalashnikov assault rifles and a book described by the presenter as "Wahhabism literature". Nikolai Dolgopolov, chief of the South Ossetian security service, told the Russian television reporters that his agency "had been trying to find out identities of these criminals". In his turn, South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity told Interfax news agency that "the [group] was plotting sabotage and terrorist acts on the eve of South Ossetia independence referendum in [on November 12] and it was also planning sabotage against major transportation infrastructure linking South Ossetia with Russia."

In the past few days the South Ossetian side has been intensively reporting on "anticipated provocations" by the Georgian side to thwart the planned independence referendum and presidential polls on November 12.