SUKHUMI, June 2 (AVN) - The mobile patrols and helicopters of the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces continue search for four UN military observers and their interpreter missed in the zone of the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict Thursday, a spokesman for the forces staff told the Military News Agency.
The observers went missed after leaving their Sukhumi office for the highland Kodor gorge, that is controlled by the Georgian troops.
Tbilisi and Sukhumi think that the observers were probably taken hostages. Sukhumi claims that was done by the militants of the White Legion Georgian guerrilla formation, Tbilisi lays the blame on the Abkhazian separatists.
The connection with the observes went down long before they could have reached the territory controlled by the Georgian authorities, a source in the Georgian Defence Ministry told the Agency.
The CIS CPF Commander Lieutenant-General Sergei Korobko issued an order to turn the troops into high combat readiness. The order stresses that it is connected with the "sharply escalated situation in the zone of the Collective Peacekeeping Forces responsibility."
According to the spokesman, the CPF staff does not consider the statement of the White Legion commander to resume the hostilities against the Ardzinba regime as an idle threat.
At present the CPF comprise a separate helicopter detachment, an airborne battalion stationed in the Gala district, a motorised rifle battalion also stationed there and one in the Zugdidi district, a sapper company and a mortar battery. The total is about 1,500 servicemen, 300 pieces of ordnance and six helicopters.