Just before dawn on Sept. 22, a small bomb exploded about 100 yards away from the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, leading to the discovery of another explosive device in a nearby cemetery.  In the following weeks, a series of mysterious nighttime bombings occurred.  On Oct 2, a bomb exploded at a bridge outside the city, then on Oct. 21 at the main train station, followed by another bombing in the middle of the night in the outskirts of the city.  Things were quiet for about a month before the biggest bombs exploded at about 2AM on Nov. 28th – striking the building of the opposition Labour Party with considerable force and the storefront of a suburban supermarket.  The bombing at the party headquarters claimed the life of one 58-year-old woman struck by shrapnel. 

Then came the arrests.  Denouncing the “terrorist attacks,” the Interior Ministry announced the arrest six people suspected of carrying out the bombings in early December – claiming that some of these individuals had initiated their bombing campaign out of the Russia-occupied Gali district of Abkhazia.  The state-loyal Inmedia television was prolific in its coverage of the bombings, and then featured the bombshell:  a televised address by President Mikheil Saakashvili in which he declared, “Evidence gathered thus far … points to a clear connection between the six suspects and an active-duty major in the Russian army,” and shared an alleged videotaped confession of Gogita Arkania, one of the arrested alleged bombers. 

If that wasn’t enough, the moral panic was amped up with the announcement of the discovery of radioactive materials (Cesium-137) in the hotel room of one of the arrested suspects, which the government says could have been used to make a dirty bomb.

No matter who is responsible for these bombings, there is little doubt that they come as a useful pretext for the embattled president, who has faced increasingly large protests by the opposition against his policies and tightening control over the media.