Car Bomb Kills Russian Troops in South Ossetia

Russia and Georgia traded accusations last night over the deadliest attack in South Ossetia since the war two months ago, a car bombing that killed seven Russian troops. Russia's defence ministry blamed Tbilisi for the "deliberately planned terrorist attack" and said the explosion was designed to derail an EU-brokered ceasefire deal.

But Georgia hit back saying Russian intelligence agencies had plotted the attack outside the headquarters of Russian peacekeeping forces inside the breakaway republic as a pretext for Moscow to keep its troops inside the country.

Under the agreement between Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow is to pull its troops out over the next six days from the so-called buffer zones next to South Ossetia and Georgia's second breakaway territory of Abkhazia.

EU leaders have expressed doubts that Russia intends to abide by the October 10 deadline. They have also said that Moscow's plan to site permanent garrisons inside both territories is a breach of an earlier commitment to return Russian forces to their positions before August's war.

Georgia denied Russia's claims last night that it was responsible for the blasts. "If provocations and tensions are in the interest of anyone, it's the Russians," the interior ministry told Reuters. "They are doing everything not to pull out troops within the set term."

According to Russian officials, Russian troops detained two cars yesterday afternoon in the ethnic Georgian village of Ditsa about three miles from South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali. They arrested four Georgians and seized light firearms and two grenades, they claimed.

"The cars and the detained people were escorted to Tskhinvali. During the search of one of the cars, an explosive device equivalent to some 20kg of TNT went off," a military spokesman told Interfax. The explosion caused devastation, shattering windows 350ft away and sending black smoke into the sky.

But it was not clear how a car packed with explosives managed to penetrate an area controlled by Russian troops. The village lies deep inside the buffer zone occupied by the Russian military.

Most ethnic Georgians have already fled the area, which has been subjected to looting, killing and ethnic cleansing by South Ossetian militias. The militias have also stolen all the cars, residents say. Additionally, Russian soldiers check all vehicles entering the zone at a series of checkpoints.

On Thursday they turned back a European parliamentary convoy.

The explosion came three days after unarmed EU observers in light armored vehicles began patrols in the buffer zone. Under the Sarkozy-Medvedev plan, some 200 European observers are meant to replace Russian forces.

But last night South Ossetia's president, Eduard Kokoity, said he had "no doubt" that Georgian special forces had carried out the blasts.

"The latest terrorist acts in South Ossetia prove that Georgia has not abandoned its policy of state terrorism," he said. "These actions undermine the efforts of the international community to stabilize the situation in the region and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy peace plan."