By RIA Novosti,
Tbilisi : Georgian authorities said an assassination attempt was made on the Georgian-appointed head of the South Ossetian administration, Dmitry Sanakoyev, on Thursday.
“A mine exploded as Sanakoyev was traveling by car from [the city of] Kurta to Batumi to attend an international conference,” a spokesman for the administration said. “According to preliminary information it was a remote-controlled mine.”
The spokesman said that following the blast a shootout occurred and three security guards were wounded, Sanakoyev is reported to be unhurt.
Georgia’s Interior Ministry confirmed the assassination attempt.
“The car of the South Ossetian provisional administration head, Dmitry Sanakoyev, was blown up by a mine set by Ossetian separatists,” the ministry said in a statement.
The South Ossetian Interior Ministry confirmed that a car had exploded Thursday in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone, but said it had no information regarding the alleged assassination attempt.
The Joint Peacekeeping Forces deployed in the conflict zone are checking the reports, a deputy forces commander said.
South Ossetia declared its independence from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. A bloody conflict that followed killed hundreds of people. The pro-Western Georgian leadership has said it is determined to bring the breakaway region, along with the rebel region of Abkhazia, back under central control.