Defying warnings from Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, around 1,000 volunteers from Abkhazia, Georgia's other breakaway province are headed to South Ossetia to aid seperatists there against the Georgian military. Abkhazia's foreign minister told Der Spiegel:

We understand very well that we Abkhazians are next in line after South Ossetia. If the situation doesn't stabilize again, then we will have to open a second front.

Abkhazia's tensions with Tblisi have been getting far more media attention than South Ossetia's over the past few months. The status of both territories have been a matter of dispute since the end of bloody civil wars in the early 1990s and both are backed by Russia in their bids for independence.

For some background on the buildup to the conflict, click here, here, here, or here.