Man blows himself up in Georgia’s breakaway region

MOSCOW — A man has blown himself up at a television station in the capital of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, Russian news agencies said on Monday.

Interfax on quoted local Interior Ministry officials saying the man, who has not been identified, set off the bomb at the entrance to the Abkhazian State Television in Sukhumi on Monday morning. Authorities said the man might have had an accomplice.

Authorities stopped short of calling the incident a terrorist attack, with the self-proclaimed president Raul Khadzhimba telling Interfax the investigation is ongoing.

Despite tension with Georgia, Abkhazia has no history of terrorist attacks on its turf.

Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed. Russia effectively gained complete control over it and a second breakaway Georgian region, South Ossetia, after a brief war against Georgia in 2008. The Abkhazian border is just a few kilometres (miles) away from Sochi, a Black Sea resort that hosted the 2014 Winter Games.

significant work

Ladysmith's enhanced Forrest Field project nears completion

5h ago

fishing season

Nanaimo-area lake stocked with popular freshwater Sockeye

7h ago

Last Minute Win

Clippers pull out late Game 1 victory over Bulldogs

12h ago

Russia news agencies quoted Abkhazia’s interior ministry as saying that the improvised explosive device contained an equivalent of 200 grams of TNT.

The Associated Press