Georgia declares ’state of war’

Georgia’s parliament has approved a decree saying the country is in a “state of war”, as hostilities with Russia escalated over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The decree by Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, was announced on Saturday and is to remain effective for 15 days.

… Even as the South Ossetian conflict mounted, Georgia faced possible fighting on two fronts.

The foreign minister of Georgia’s other breakaway province of Abkhazia said its separatist forces had launched air and artillery strikes to drive Georgian troops from the region.

Sergei Shamba said Abkhazian forces intended to push Georgian troops out of the Kodori Gorge. The northern part of the gorge is the only area of Abkhazia that has remained under Georgian government control.

A spokesman for the pro-Georgian Abkhaz government-in-exile said the bombings had been carried out by Russian warplanes.

Al-Jazeera