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Overnight fighting that included sniper and mortar fire between Georgian forces and separatists in the breakaway South Ossetia region left six people dead and 13 wounded, regional officials said Saturday.The fighting-from Friday evening through Saturday morning-was one of the most serious outbursts in the tensions that have plagued South Ossetia since it split off from Georgia after fighting in the mid-1990s. Georgia says it opened fire in response to South Ossetian attacks on several villages that left five civilians and a police officer injured.South Ossetia government spokeswoman Irina Gagloyeva said six people were killed and 13 wounded in the fighting, but she did not say which side they were on or whether they were civilians,troops or law enforcement.Most of South Ossetia now is run by an unrecognized separatist government that has close ties with Russia, but several large swaths are under Georgian control.Gagloyeva told The Associated Press that Georgian forces started the fighting Friday evening with snipers firing on the northern portion of the republic's capital, Tskhinvali, and on several of its forces' posts. The firing lasted about three hours, then paused and resumed with mortar fire that lasted until Saturday morning, she said.Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said South Ossetian forces began the clash by firing on at least three villages in Georgia-controlled territory.The commander of Georgian peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia, Mamuka Kurashvili, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying his side was investigating whether Russian peacekeeping soldiers were involved.That brought a sharp denunciation from Moscow. Kurashvili's statement is "a dirty informational provocation," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Col. Alexander Drobyshevsky said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed to bring South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia, under his government's control. But leaders of both regions instead insist on either independence or absorption into Russia.Tensions have been high as Russia has developed closer ties with the separatist regions, where most residents have Russian passports, and Georgia has pushed to join NATO, which Russia opposes.In July, four Russian warplanes circled South Ossetia while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was visiting Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. Russia said it sent the planes as a warning against a possible Georgian invasion, but Washington and Georgia criticized Russia for violating Georgian airspace.As in the days of Noah...
