South Ossetia leader says 1,400 killed in conflict

South Ossetia leader says 1,400 killed in conflict

www.independent.co.uk

The president of the Georgian breakaway region, Eduard Kokoity, was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying: "About 1,400 died. We will check these figures, but the order of the numbers is around this. We have this on the basis of reports from relatives."...

...The timing suggests Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili may have been counting on surprise to fulfill his longtime pledge to wrest back control of South Ossetia — a key to his hold on power.

(visit the link for the full news article)


Related News Links:
www.theherald.co.uk
www.mirror.co.uk
www.reuters.com
www.russiatoday.ru

[edit on 9/8/08 by The Godfather of Conspira]

Well with the massive Georgian artillery strikes overnight on the residential areas of the capital, Tskhinvali I'm not surprised such a figure is being thrown around here.

It seems more and more likely the more footage you see unfolding from these incidents.




Georgian BM-21's have fired huge barrages of rockets over night (some early into the next day), and with the inaccuracy and area effect of these weapons I'm sure many civilians got caught up in the carnage.

Lyudmila Ostayeva, 50, who had fled with her family to Dzhava, a village near the border with Russia, said: "I saw bodies lying on the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars. It's impossible to count them now. There is hardly a single building left undamaged."

This video covers the shelling and mass exodus from the capital quite well:

This whole tragic episode is getting out of hand fast.
I can't help but think if Saakashvili wanted to reassert his influence over S. Ossetia he's going about in completely the wrong way by drawing Russia into this conflict.

There's no way Russia will back down now, they don't want another Chechnya to unfold and break off more pieces of the Federation along with it and Putin can't afford to be seen as indecisive on such a matter after such a long, popular term.

I'm not making any comments regarding the West and NATO here because there's still no evidence as to what moves they plan on, I will say though that this has the potential to claim far more lives unless both sides are brought to the table quickly.

The South Ossetians may have initiated the hostilities but Georgia has opened fire on Russian military personnel without provocation. (No ones verified their claims Russian planes violated their air space and their seeming less and less likely by the minute).
It's only a matter of time before Russia comes down hard on the Caucasus.

www.independent.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 9/8/08 by The Godfather of Conspira]

Unconfirmed reports of 2,000 deaths so far:

www.guardian.co.uk...
www.guardian.co.uk...

Doesn't surprise me in the least. Georgia is engaging in some very, borderline tactics here, indiscriminately targeting civilians and disregarding every convention in the book (parading dead Russian pilots on TV).

Apparently Georgia has also bombed a hospital (www.thestar.com...) and is engaging in some very disturbing tactics, throwing grenades into basements of civilian houses: www.russiatoday.ru...

And still the West is demanding Russia stand down....?