KARALETI/TBILISI: Russian forces on Monday began dismantling a key checkpoint in the buffer zone around Georgia’s rebel region of South Ossetia, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The checkpoint near the village of Karaleti is on a main road leading to the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. It controls access to a cluster of Georgian villages south of the breakaway region that were on the frontline of the August war between Russia and Georgia.

Russian soldiers were seen cutting barbed wire between a road block and their encampment at the checkpoint, as well as starting to take down tents. The soldiers refused to say when they were planning to leave. Russian soldiers were also seen taking down tents and removing material from a checkpoint near South Ossetia at Kvenatkotsa, which Georgian and European Union officials had earlier said was expected to be dismantled Monday.

There were no signs of Russians withdrawing from another position near South Ossetia they were expected to leave Monday, a communications post near the village of Nadarbazevi. Following the deployment of EU observers last week, Russian forces are expected to withdraw from buffer zones around South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, by Friday.

The Russian military dismantled its first checkpoint under the pull-back plan Sunday and began taking down others. Russian forces pushed into Georgia in early August to repel a Georgian military effort to regain control of South Ossetia. Moscow said it was protecting Russian citizens there from Georgian aggression, but Tbilisi accused it of having provoked the conflict to cement control over the region and destabilise its pro-Western government.

Russia recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent on August 26 and has said it intends to keep troops there. meanwhile, Georgian-controlled territory near the rebel region of Abkhazia was shelled overnight on Monday but no one was injured and there was no damage from the attack, the interior ministry said.

Four mortar attacks were carried out in unpopulated areas near the village of Pakhulani close to the de facto border with Abkhazia, interior ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP. A roadside bomb also exploded in the region, on a road leading to a strategic power station on the Enguri River, he said. “None of these explosions have caused any injury or damage. We are looking into who might be behind the explosions,” he said.