STAVROPOL/TBILISI. Sept 3 (Interfax-AVN) - Up to 500 guerillas including 270 ones from a group led by warlord Ruslan Gelayev are located in Georgian areas close to the border with Russia, a spokesman for the North Caucasus regional border guard department told Interfax-Military News Agency on Tuesday.
"One of the possible ways that rebels might use to break through to Russia is the mountain territory of North Ossetia in the area of responsibility of the Vladikavkaz border guard detachment," the spokesman said.
"Among the guerillas there are many those, who committed many crimes," the spokesman stressed.
A source in the Georgian Kakheti district police department said that the Pankisi gorge hosts up to 50 criminals, who are to be detained by Georgian law-enforcement agencies in the course of an anti-criminal operation.