TBILISI (Georgia), Aug 10 (AP): Russia expanded its bombing blitz Sunday against neighbouring US-allied Georgia, targeting the country's capital for the first time while Georgian troops pulled out of the breakaway province of South Ossetia, as Russia has demanded.
Georgia's Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said that Georgian troops had relocated to new positions outside South Ossetia.
"They are outside the region entirely," he said in a telephone conference.
Russia has demanded that Georgia pull out its troops from South Ossetia as a condition to negotiate a cease-fire. It also urged Georgia to sign a pledge not to use force against South Ossetia as another condition for ending hostilities.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said that Moscow now needed to verify the Georgian withdrawal. "We must check all that. We don't trust the Georgian side," he said.
Russian jets raided a plant on the eastern outskirts of Tbilisi that builds Su-25 ground jets used in the conflict by Georgia, a US ally whose troops have been trained by American soldiers. The attack damaged runways but caused no casualties, said Georgia's Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili.
"We heard a plane go over and then a big explosion," said Malkhaz Chachanidze, a 41-year old ceramics artist whose house is located just outside the fence of the factory, which has been running since the Soviet era. "It woke us up, everything shook."
The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war increased when Russian-supported separatists in another Georgia's breakaway region, Abkhazia, launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops to drive them out of a small part of the province they control. Fifteen UN military observers were told to evacuate.
Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since splitting from Georgia in the early 1990s and have built up ties with Moscow. Russia has granted its passports to most of their residents.
In yet another sign that the conflict could widen, Ukraine warned Russia Sunday it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast.
Russian jets have been roaming Georgia's skies since Friday. They raided several air bases and bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.
The Russian warplanes also struck near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which carries Caspian crude to the West, but no supply interruptions have been reported.
Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili called it an "unprovoked brutal Russian invasion."
US President Bush called for an end to the Russian bombings and an immediate halt to the violence.
"The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis," Bush said in a statement to reporters while attending the Olympic games in Beijing.
Jim Jeffrey, Bush's deputy national security adviser, warned that "if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant long-term impact on US-Russian relations."
An Associated Press reporter who visited the town shortly after the strike saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.
Russian officials said they weren't targeting civilians, but Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Georgia brought the air strikes upon itself by bombing civilians and Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. He warned that the small Caucasus country should expect more attacks.
Another report from Washington adds: Russia's use of overwhelming military force against Georgia, including strategic bombers and ballistic missiles, is disproportionate to any threat from the former Soviet state and could escalate tensions in the volatile region, a senior US official said Saturday.
The Bush administration official, who briefed reporters on condition his name not be used because of the sensitive nature of the situation, said Russia had attacked areas in Georgia that were far away from the separatist province of South Ossetia, where the fighting had centred. The official also said the Russian military was striking civilian targets.
