Georgia army on alert after president barred

Georgia has put its armed forces on alert after recently elected President Mikhail Saakashvili's convoy was barred from entering the restive region of Adzhara, a Georgian radio station says. The mounting tension on Sunday, accompanied by a reported closure of the country's airspace, follows Saakashvili's stark warning to the region's leader to abide by national law or face action. The Imedi radio station said that in the Adzhara-controlled town of Batumi -- Georgia's main Black Sea port -- local authorities had blocked the airport runway with trucks. Georgia's Rustavi-2 television showed footage of soldiers blocking Saakashvili's convoy at a checkpoint on the road into the Adzhara autonomous republic. A warning shot could be heard. "No way. We will not allow you to enter," one soldier told Georgia's Prosecutor General Irakly Okruashivili and Interior Minister Georgy Baramidze when they approached his post on foot. In a telephone address on Adzhara radio, the region's leader Aslan Abashidze, who is in Moscow, told his supporters: "Be vigilant, stay firm, I'll be with you very soon." But it was not clear if he would be able to fly back or if Georgia's airspace was closed. Zurab Chankotadze, head of the civil aviation administration, said the Interior Ministry had taken over his headquarters and he had been denied entry.