MOSCOW. July 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Georgia has deployed a force of army and police units, amounting to over 1,500 men, as well as a great number of armored vehicles near the border with South Ossetia, Tskhinvali says.
"In the past months Georgia has deployed a large force, comprising army and police units (in excess of 1,500 men and a great number of armored vehicles), near the border with South Ossetia, with the force still being reinforced," a high-ranking South Ossetian special services official told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
"We understand that the deployment of such a force near our border confirms Tbilisi's intent to manage the crisis by resorting to force. All it needs is an excuse to attack South Ossetia," he emphasized.
Irina Gagloyeva, Chairwoman of the South Ossetian Press and Information Committee, told Interfax-AVN that the Georgian side was really re-deploying forces and combat materiel to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict area.
"The South Ossetian State Security Committee has just received information that 70 servicemen from the Telavi battalion have already been deployed in the Tskhinvali district, while one of the Georgian Defense Ministry bases houses a sabotage team, amounting to 50 special operations experts, trained within the Pentagon-sponsored Train and Equip program, which is tasked with conducting self-sustaining sabotage operations in Ossetia. The main objective of this team is to assassinate a number of South Ossetian officials," Gagloyeva said.
She also said that three officials from the Georgian State Security Ministry, apprehended in South Ossetia several days before for reconnoitering checkpoints and terrain, which they had admitted in the course of the investigation, were still in prison.
"At the present time the issue of handing over these officials to Georgia will not be discussed, until the investigation is over," Gagloyeva said.