A car bomb blast near Russia's peacekeeping headquarters in South Ossetia has left 7 military personnel killed and 7 others injured.

The explosion took place on Friday near the command post of the Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali, the capital of the independence-leaning republic.

The car, with some quantities of arms in it, was seized earlier in a nearby village, said South Ossetia's press department, AP reported. The dead were confirmed to be Russian servicemen.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity says the Georgian security forces are behind the incident.

Georgia invaded South Ossetia early in August in a bid to regain control over the region, which had declared independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The invasion evoked an armed response from Russia to protect the country's nationals and peacekeepers in South Ossetia where a majority of the public enjoy Russian citizenship.

The explosion raised the questions whether the time was ripe for the promised withdrawal of the Russian peacekeepers who, since the August clash, have moved into buffer zones waiting to be fully replaced by the EU monitors within the next seven days.

Last week, the Russian foreign ministry echoed the caution, voiced by many Russian authorities, that the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili could order another raid on South Ossetia.

"We hope that the European Union, which pledged to guarantee the non-use of force principle, will take into account Saakashvili's habit of breaking promises," the ministry had said last Friday.

Deputy Chief of Russia's General Staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn afterwards sent the organization a stronger message saying "EU representatives are to some degree frightened by…the question of how to keep control of the region."

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili, however, charged that explosion had been engineered for the situation in the area seem precipitous thus making a longer Russian stay plausible, AFP reported.

"This is a provocation with the aim of keeping Russian forces in
Georgia," Utiashvili said.

HN/MMN