South Ossettia Leader Says 1,400 Killed in Conflict

Georgia launched a major military offensive today to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia. Rebel leaders said about 1,400 had been killed.

The offensive prompted Moscow to send tanks into the region in a furious response that threatens to engulf Georgia, a staunch US ally, and Russia in all-out war.

It was by far the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won de-facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was devastated.

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."

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."

The fighting broke out as much of the world's attention was focused on the start of the Olympic Games and many leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush, were on their way to Beijing.

link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/south-ossettia-leader-says-1400-killed-in-conflict-888487.html

Georgia's interior ministry says the country's air force has shot down at least five Russian aircraft amid fighting in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman at the ministry, said: "The Georgian air force has downed at least five Russian aircraft. Bitter fighting is ongoing in Tskhinvali ."

The claim could not be independently verified.

Earlier on Friday, Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian separatist leader, told Russia's Interfax news agency that 1,400 South Ossetians had been killed in the fighting.

He said: "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 separatist region has been under heavy attack from Georgian forces since a brief ceasefire on Thursday night.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/08/200888174530586345.html

It's kind of hard to keep them from crashing on their own.