Rebel region says it kills four Georgian 'saboteurs'

TBILISI, Oct 31 (Reuters) Police in the separatist South Ossetia region killed four Georgian ''saboteurs'' today, a South Ossetian minister said, raising tension days before Ossetians vote in an independence referendum.

South Ossetia threw off Georgian rule in fighting during the early 1990s. A ceasefire was signed but violence has simmered between the two sides, especially since the fiery pro-Western Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili was elected in 2004.

''A group of Georgian saboteurs has been eliminated this morning,'' South Ossetia's emergency minister, Boris Chochiev, told Reuters. He did not give any details about who the men were working for or what they were doing.

''According to preliminary reports there were four of them. All of them have been killed.'' Georgian authorities said they had no information about any of their police or military being killed.

Last month a helicopter carrying Georgia's defence minister was hit by gunfire as it flew over South Ossetia and a shoot out between police killed three South Ossetians and one Georgian.

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