4 U.N. Observers Are Kidnapped

An armed group kidnapped four U.N. military observers, demanding the release of suspects in last week’s failed assassination attempt on President Eduard A. Shevardnadze. Government troops surrounded the remote country house where the kidnappers, followers of the nation’s first elected post-Soviet leader, the late Zviad Gamsakhurdia, were holding a Czech lieutenant colonel, a Swedish major and two Uruguayans. The incident occurred a few miles outside Abkhazia, a breakaway region on the Black Sea coast that has been beyond the control of the government since 1993.