Georgia claims attempted coup at military base

Per Reuters, the defense ministry of Georgia accused Russia of a planned coup shortly after soldiers at a military base rebelled near Tbilisi.

CNN reports that the rebellion involved about 500 troops and it was quickly brought under control, according to Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili. There was not “direct evidence” to suggest outside involvement, according to CNN.

A journalist in London provided the first tweet on the incident, which was soon followed by a Twitterer in Tbilisi posting a blog entry in Georgian:

1. 
   samgadjones (London, U.K.) #Georgia Defense Min: Military Coup Under Way - Reuters ... no sign of Twitter revolution yet, a la Moldova... 05 May 2009 from web
2. 
   BigCrow (Tbilisi, Georgia) Military armed revolt in #Georgia #tbilisi : http://bigcrow.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/military/ 05 May 2009 from web

Initial reaction soon came in from around the world in the form of tweets, including additional context from CNN News Editor Saeed Ahmed:

1. 
   CNNSaeed (Atlanta, Ga.) #Georgia attempted mutiny quashed. Goal was to disrupt NATO exercises beginning tomorrow 05 May 2009 from TwitterFox
2. 
   floco (Germany) weiterer pr-coup? RT @Gudat: RT @reutersfeeds: #reuters #news Georgia says uncovers Russian-planned military coup http://tinyurl.com/ddg2j 05 May 2009 from Netvibes
3. 
   lepetitvagabond (Singapore) Breaking news from Georgia? Must be some Ruskie plot. 05 May 2009 from TweetDeck
4. 
   Chen_Zhen (Jiangsu, China) Georgia has uncovered an attempted military coup.this [expletive] will never occur here in china where army serve party 05 May 2009 from web

Georgia claims attempted coup at military base