Georgia to impose martial law, port bombed: official

Fri Aug 8, 2008 6:50pm EDT
 
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TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will declare martial law in a few hours time, the secretary of Georgia's Security Council said early on Saturday.

"The president is going to declare a state of martial law within a few hours," Kakha Lomaia told Reuters. "Russia has bombed the (Black Sea) port of Poti and the military base at Senaki. We think Russia has started to bomb civil and economic infrastructure."

In the port of Poti, the Russian fighter jets hit container tankers and a shipbuilding plant, Georgia's Deputy Economic Development Minister Vato Lezhava told Reuters. He said between 8 and 11 Russian jets were involved in the attack.

(Reporting by James Kilner and Margarita Antidze; writing by Conor Sweeney)

 
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