First eyewitness accounts of capital of South Ossetia

Just in in "Some weep, some rage as bombs pulverise capital" from The Independent:

"The capital of South Ossetia bears all the appearance of a place that has been pulverised by days of Georgian bombing and by the ferocious Russian counter-attack that followed. Smoke still rises from smouldering buildings and from the wreckage of tanks and armoured cars. Grief-stricken women amid the ruins weep at the horror visited on them, others scream their rage.

The Independent entered the rebel capital yesterday, the first Western news organisation to do so since the start of a conflict in which Russian warplanes have bombed targets across Georgia, an ally of the West. We were escorted in by South Ossetian soldiers stationed at the border with the words: "You are coming with us to Tskhinvali, you are not going back, I promise you."

What unfolded offered an intriguing, if terrifying, insight into the savage, internecine violence that has now been unleashed in Georgia."

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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