MOSCOW, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Georgia's Defense Ministry confirmed Tuesday that four servicemen of its artillery brigade were detained in Znauri district in the country's breakaway region of South Ossetia, and said it would try to secure their release, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

    "The Georgian state will do everything it can to free them," Mamuka Kurashvili, chief of the ministry's peacekeeping operations staff, was quoted as saying.

    He said the four officers had been visiting friends near the conflict zone.

    "When they were returning, an armed gang of Ossetians and North Caucasus militants abducted the four officers," he said. "They are holding them illegally."

    The press service of the self-proclaimed republic said earlier that four Georgian servicemen had been detained in South Ossetia, alleging that they were engaged in reconnaissance activities.

    Tensions have recently flared up in South Ossetia. The administration of the breakaway republic accused Georgia of attacking its capital Tskhinvali and nearby villages, killing and injuring its people.

    The Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke from central rule in the 1990s following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. But their self-proclaimed independence is not internationally recognized.

    In 1992, Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia and North Ossetia set up a joint supervision committee, and a tripartite security force formed by Russia, Georgia and South Ossetia was sent to the conflict region.

    Relations between Tbilisi and South Ossetia have remained strained since late May 2004, when Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili briefly sent troops into the region.