Two Russian troops killed in rebel Georgian region

MOSCOW, Aug 3 (Reuters) Two Russian peacekeepers were killed when their convoy carrying money was attacked in the rebel Georgian region of Abkhazia, local officials were quoted today.

The killing came at a time of high tensions between Georgia and Russia over the Black Sea enclave. Moscow has warned Tbilisi off any military attempt to regain control over the region.

Last week, Georgia sent troops into a remote gorge that pierces Abkhazia despite protests from Russian officials and the separatist administration.

''Two servicemen from the peacekeeping force... died from injuries received as a result of a bandit attack on Wednesday evening,'' a spokesman for Russia's Defence Ministry told Itar-Tass news agency.

He said the soldiers had been in a car accompanying a bus loaded with cash north of regional capital Sukhumi.

The killings are likely to raise tensions in the region after the assault on the Kodori gorge.

There was no suggestion of Georgian involvement in the assault, but last month Russia accused Georgia of using small attacks as a method of trying to provoke war in the second rebel region of South Ossetia.

Abkhaz officials said two people were detained, one of whom had been injured by return fire from the Russian soldiers, who guard Abkhazia's border along a line agreed at the end of the 1992-93 war when the region broke free of central control.

''We couldn't interrogate him overnight because he was in a serious condition after his injuries, but now we have the possibility of getting information from this criminal,'' Abkhaz Interior Minister Otar Khetsiya told Interfax news agency.

In the 1990s, attacks on Russian peacekeepers -- whom Georgian officials call occupiers -- were frequent.

The region is now largely calm although areas where ethnic Georgians, 250,000 of whom are now refugees, lived are still in ruins and large tracts of farmland are deserted.

REUTERS BDP BS1239