From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 3/14/2007 2:04 AM
U.N. Finds Evidence That Russian Gunships Aided in Missile Attacks on Villages in Georgia
By C. J. CHIVERS

Published: March 14, 2007

MOSCOW, March 13 — A United Nations observer mission in Georgia on Tuesday opened an investigation into missile attacks in three remote Georgian villages, and the initial evidence suggested that Russian helicopter gunships were involved.

The military action, which occurred Sunday night and damaged several buildings in the Kodori Gorge, a mountainous area of the Caucasus ridge along Russia’s southwestern border, caused no injuries to the local population, the Georgian authorities said.

But it threatened to aggravate the already tense relations between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet republic that has resisted the Kremlin’s efforts at regional dominance.

Both Russia and the forces of the nearby breakaway region of Abkhazia denied involvement in the attacks, leaving the strikes, for now, an unacknowledged use of military force in an volatile corner of the former Soviet world.

The United States expressed deep concern and called for calm during the investigation. “We call on all concerned parties to cooperate fully with the investigation and look forward to the results,” the American Embassy in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, said in a statement.

American officials in Tbilisi and Washington declined to discuss any initial assessments of the strikes, saying they were waiting for the investigation’s findings to be released.

Georgian officials claimed on Monday that Mi-24 attack helicopters from Russia had flown sorties over the border during the previous night and had struck government buildings and houses in the towns of Azhara, Chkhalta and Gentsvishi.

Only experienced and well-trained pilots could have made some of the shots, they said, as the approach to the targets required flying in darkness with night-vision goggles through a narrow and often fog-bound gorge.

There was evidence suggesting that artillery or ground-to-ground rockets might have been fired at the villages as well. Investigators were still examining the shrapnel, however, and the question of whether ground-to-ground ordnance had also been used was not clear, a military officer involved in the United Nations’ investigation said.

All of the towns are near the breakaway region of Abkhazia, a Russian-supported enclave inside Georgia’s borders that has not recognized the Georgian central government since the Soviet Union collapsed. Russian forces are posted in Abkhaz territory and have equipment capable of ground-to-ground bombardments, although the Russian units are formally on peacekeeping duty.

Georgia lost a brief war with Abkhaz separatists in the early 1990s. Since then, the area has been a self-declared republic that seeks independence. No nation has formally recognized it, but Russia has served as its patron, providing aid and political support and granting citizenship to almost all of its residents.

The Kodori Gorge was also outside of Georgia’s control for more than a decade, run by a local strongman and an irregular militia until Georgian forces chased away the militia in July and restored the gorge to the central government’s control.

The operation in July allowed Georgians previously expelled from Abkhazia by the war to open offices of a government-in-exile in Ajara, which lies within the liberated area. It also raised hopes in Georgia that it was a step toward national reunification, which has been a central ambition of Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-Western president — and a source of tension with Russia and the de facto Abkhaz government.

It was the new office of the government-in-exile, housed in a bright pink building that has frequently been in Georgia’s national news, that was struck Sunday night. Pictures of the impact area, posted on a Georgian Web site, show that what seemed to have been a missile struck a flagpole and detonated, shearing the pole and splattering the facade of the building with shrapnel. The remains of the ordnance then slammed into the outside wall, making a large hole.

The shrapnel collected from the site suggested that it had been fired from an Mi-24, said Eka Zguladze, Georgia’s deputy minister of internal affairs, by telephone. The Mi-24 is a Russian attack gunship in abundance just over the border inside Russia, where several aviation units support counterinsurgency operations in Chechnya.

Ms. Zguladze said that United Nations investigators had collected evidence at 13 other impact sites as well and that at least 20 missiles were known to have struck the area.

The United Nations refused to comment on the amount or nature of the shrapnel it had collected, saying the investigation was continuing and patrols examining the impact sites in the mountains had not completed their work. The patrols included United Nations staff members as well as representatives from Abkhazia, Georgia and the Russian peacekeeping force.

“They are going to need at least a couple of days up there to do a thorough job,” Stan Vietsman, the special assistant to the special representative of the United Nations secretary general, said by telephone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/14/world/europe/14georgia.html?ex=1174536000&en=192361b5831122b1&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVERNEWS