Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 10, 1993 TAG: 9308100302
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Newsday
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The operation, including the deployment in Georgia of U.S. Army Special Forces as security advisers this spring, was confirmed in the aftermath of the assassination of an American described as a U.S. Embassy officer from Moscow detached to Shevardnadze June 3. Killed by a single shot was Fred Woodruff, 45, of Herndon, Va., who was to return home in a few days, U.S. officials said.
While details were sketchy, U.S. and Georgian officials in Tbilisi said Woodruff was riding in a car driven by Eldar Gugusladze, the Georgian leader's chief bodyguard, who was uninjured. According to State Department spokesman Mike McCurry, Woodruff was on an unofficial, personal tour to a specific but unidentified town, 15 miles outside Tbilisi.
Shevardnadze said criminals or mobsters were probably to blame. "There are mafioso structures and criminal elements, which are very active," Shevardnadze said in his weekly radio address. He called the killing a "murder" and said he was "deeply distressed."
Interior Ministry spokesman Valerian Gogolashvili speculated that the motive could have been auto theft. But McCurry said it was not yet known whether Woodruff was the target of the attack. "I think that's one of the things that they are looking at very deliberately at the moment," he said.
Administration officials said Shevardnadze and his bodyguard, Gugusladze, had been working with CIA officials to combat what was viewed as a series of assassination plots against the Georgian leader by Abkhazian separatists.
U.S. government sources familiar with intelligence from the region said several members of the vaunted Delta anti-terrorist team from the Fort Bragg, N.C., Special Forces center were deployed to Georgia to assist Shevardnadze.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB