International observers in Georgia take fire

The situation in the former Soviet republic of Georgia remains tense, as European observers discovered today as they traveled in the Gori area today.  Two gunmen in cammo jumped out from the bushes and sprayed their vehicle with gunfire, injuring no one but raising all sorts of questions about whether South Ossetia has sent guerilla fighters into Georgia proper:

Camouflaged gunmen fired on an armored car carrying monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe at close range Wednesday, near the border with the breakaway region of South Ossetia, officials said.

There were no injuries in the incident, which occurred in the Gori region, said Martha Freeman, a spokeswoman for the OSCE.

But the incident stoked concerns about the security of the districts bordering South Ossetia. It also renewed questions about whether Ossetian militias or other forces might be trying to intimidate international observers monitoring the French-brokered cease-fire that formally ended the August war between Russia and Georgia.

South Ossetia declared that they had nothing to do with the incident.  Their defense ministry noted that the incident took place almost a mile from the disputed border, and that the Kalashnikovs used have a range much shorter than that.  However, that’s really the point, and the range has nothing to do with this incident, as the observers saw the men who sprayed the car with bullets.  Their response amounts to a non-sequitur.

Perhaps they will later make the case that Georgia staged this as a ruse for a pretext for further military action.  Anything’s possible, but it doesn’t make much sense for Mikhail Saakashvili to stage this kind of incident now.  The last thing he needs is another Russian invasion, and Saakashvili knows better than to think that the OCSE folks will call in NATO reinforcements in that event.

This makes more sense as a South Ossetian provocation, or even more as an attempt to chase international observers out of Georgia so that they can get back to their war.  Europeans don’t have the greatest reputations for hanging tough, and the South Ossetians and the Russian masters must believe that a few incidents of this type will force the West to retreat on its alliance with Georgia.  Are they right?