Georgian Leader Safe After Attack Bodyguard, Attacker Killed During Motorcade Ambush

Attackers armed with a grenade launcher and machine guns ambushed President Eduard Shevardnadze’s motorcade Monday, opening a 10-minute battle that killed one attacker and one bodyguard. The president escaped unharmed, aides said.

State television showed the 70-year-old leader talking by phone later with Azerbaijan’s president, assuring him, “I am OK.”

The gunmen attacked about a half-mile from Shevardnadze’s residence in the capital, Tbilisi, as the Georgian leader’s four-car motorcade was returning home, presidential spokesman Vakhtang Maskhuliya said.

The slain bodyguard had been in Shevardnaze’s car, which was badly damaged by a rocket-propelled grenade, officials said.

There was no claim of responsibility for the brutal attack, and authorities said they had yet to determine the motive. Shevardnadze said on state TV the dead attacker had not been identified, and there were no reports of any arrests.

Police and security forces stormed the area, searching vehicles and buildings for the assailants, although they didn’t even know how many men they were looking for.

The attack appeared to be the second assassination attempt in four years on Shevardnadze, who once served as a Soviet foreign minister before Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union.

Shevardnadze was cut by flying glass when a bomb exploded in his motorcade on Aug. 29, 1995, as the president was leaving for a ceremonial signing of the constitution.

Georgian prosecutors have charged 14 people in connection with that attack. The suspects include former Shevardnadze supporter Dzhaba Ioseliani, who along with some of the other suspects had been a member of the outlawed Mkhedrioni organization.